


The Shadow and The Soul

by AprilFeldspar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Drastoria, Dark Severus Snape, F/M, Forced Marriage, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Marriage of Convenience, No marriage law, Plot, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Realistic Aftermath of War, Self-Hatred, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape Needs a Hug, Slow Burn, Slytherin Pride, Slytherins Being Slytherins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:53:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 38
Words: 154,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23128834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AprilFeldspar/pseuds/AprilFeldspar
Summary: After barely surviving Nagini's bite, Snape finds himself cast in a marriage of convenience with Hermione Granger of all people. Could it be just unfortunate circumstance or the beginning of something more? Meanwhile, the long-reaching consequences of the war see the rise of a terrible threat to the Muggle world and Snape is the only one who seems to notice because as always history is written by the victors. The truth of that hits House Slytherin the hardest.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 714
Kudos: 671
Collections: Granger/snape fan fic, Snape survives Nagini





	1. Prologue

  
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,  
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.  
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

(Pablo Neruda, _One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII_ )

Dressed in a black pants suit with a crisp white shirt and matching Oxford shoes, Hermione would not have been out of place in any major corporation. Since she was a witch, she was racing towards her job at the Ministry of Magic, a cup of coffee in one hand and the day's issue of the Daily Prophet in the other. Anger put an additional sprint in her step. Leave it to Rita Skeeter to ruin a perfectly good day. Again. A war hero and a member of Golden Trio, Hermione was a permanent fixture in the Prophet and the public's eye. And it had worn thin fast. Life as a celebrity was something she could do without. Especially with front page material such as this.

_Another Hermione Granger-Prince Cheating Scandal? Where Is Her Husband?_

The gazes she encountered along the way to her office ranged from maliciously curious to unfriendly. Of all the people she met on her way in, only Arthur Weasley smiled and waved at her. Her husband might not be the most popular of wizards, though that was terribly unfair, if you asked her, given everything that they owed him. Still nobody liked a cheater. That was just it. Her marriage was, by no means, a love match, but Hermione was not a cheater. She had never cheated on an exam and she would definitely not cheat on a husband. She was also not one to backtrack on any commitment she had made or cause an international scandal for the sake of a cheap affair. The man who had been photographed with her at dinner was a visiting high-ranking official from the French Ministry of Magic. He was interested in some of the propositions Hermione had for regulations regarding house elves and werewolves, hence, why they had decided to go out and get something to eat as their discussions on the matter had lasted well into the evening. That was when Skeeter had had to snap her picture.

Once in her office, Hermione snapped the paper onto her desk and huffed a heavy sigh. Now she had to track down her French colleague and apologise. She cringed realizing that if the man was attached, she had probably gotten him into trouble at home. Truth was she really didn’t know. He was a visiting foreign dignitary; it wasn’t like they had discussed any personal issues. The whole thing would be awkward, no doubt, but not half as much as what awaited for her at the weekend. She had been unsure that she would go but Rita Skeeter had just made certain that she had to now.

# # #

Hermione slammed the door to her London flat then leaned against it with a sigh. It had been a particularly long day, longer than when Skeeter had photographed her having drinks with Neville in a Muggle pub. It hadn’t been even drinks, for neither was much of a drinker. It had been just friends hanging out. But Skeeter had caught them when Hermione had been leaning closer, laughing, one hand resting on Neville’s arm. One day she would making disgusting boils appear all over Skeeter’s face. One day…

She put her blazer in the closet and took out a set of robes. Her penchant for Muggle clothes had held the front page of the Prophet for a while but people got bored of the same thing fast so Skeeter and others like her had gone hunting for fresh stuff soon enough. The truth was that, safe for her surprising marriage and the scandal surrounding it, there wasn’t much juicy gossip that could be published about the Golden Trio. Harry, who had been the main target of the press for a while, had gone into training as an Auror, which, given the aura of secrecy surrounding it, didn’t lend itself to much public scrutiny. Similarly Ron divided his time between his own training and helping out in his George’s joke shop. Hermione’s position with the Ministry was the most prominent and visible. Couple that with her highly controversial propositions and she drew reporters in like a magnet.

She turned around with a smile and dashed out of her bedroom when she heard movement back in her living-room. She had a tiny chimney that was part of the Floo network. Surely enough Harry and Ron were already there. She ran towards them and hugged each one in turn enthusiastically. At least, in her flat, under the protection of her spells, she could safely embrace her friends without any unpleasant allegations holding the front page of the Prophet the next day. When she pulled back to invite them to sit down, she saw the compassion in their eyes.

“You saw today’s Prophet.”

“Nobody believes that about you, Hermione,” Ron said sitting on the arm of her couch.

Harry nodded. “It’s just like it was last month with Neville.”

Hermione shook her head. “It’s different this time. Almost everybody knew Neville and I are friends from Hogwarts.”

“Well, nobody who matters believes it,” Ron interjected firmly. “An outrage, that’s what my Mum’s calling these articles.”

Her chest suffused with warmth. “Thanks, Ronald. Tell your Mum I said hullo.”

“She’s expecting you over, you know,” Ron added.

“What… what did _he_ have to say about it?” asked Harry.

Hermione’s stomach coiled unpleasantly, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten much that day. She stifled another sigh. “Nothing. I imagine he must be hoping I’ll be running off to France some time soon and rid him of me.”

Harry had nothing to say to that. Ron had lowered his gaze and was presently busy chewing on his lower lip. Her husband was a difficult topic between them. Amazingly enough, it wasn’t her marriage, the circumstances surrounding it, or even her school romance with Ron that had caused all the awkwardness but the immense, impossible to repay debt they all owed him. It was hard to reconcile that with their opinion of him prior to the revelation of his memories. Harry no longer hated him but he still didn’t like him and he was seriously creeped out by Snape’s love for his mother. Ron was mostly just creeped out. Together, they were uncomfortable with the whole thing.

Hermione sprang to her feet from seat she had just occupied. “Who wants tea?” she said to change the subject.

Both Harry and Ron looked immediately relieved. They smiled and she grinned in return. It was so easy with them. Always.

# # #

The Prince Manor looked princely indeed. It was a large, majestic mansion with grim, granite walls and all the warmth and cosiness of a mausoleum. Its front was mirrored in the pond that lay just before the house. From all the other parts it was surrounded by an overgrown park that could probably do with some landscaping. Apparating on the front steps next to her levitating trunk, Hermione took a deep, fortifying breath before going in. She had changed out of her Muggle clothes and into a set of plain, pearl grey robes. The change wasn’t for her husband’s benefit. He wouldn’t notice if he paraded in front of him in a bikini bathing suit. But everything and everyone in this house blasted would.

The heavy oak door creaked when Hermione opened it with a whispered password. The house was sunken into semi-obscurity courtesy of the opulent drapes covering just about every one of the tall, elongated windows. It was cooler inside than outside and permanently drafty. Hermione’s heart gave a painful lurch. Nobody deserved to leave secluded in this awful place, with no friends, far away from everyone even remotely amiable, and surrounded by dour, prejudiced ghosts and pretentious paintings. This was no way to treat a war hero whose sacrifices had ensured their victory.

Cagey, the house elf, appeared before her, startling her. Cagey was ancient and looked it. He was also so unkind and bigoted, he made his counterpart at House Black seem almost nice by comparison. More than once Hermione had heard him mutter _Mudblood_ under his breath around her. Her involvement with S.P.E.W. and her more recent legal initiatives hadn’t endeared her to him, either. Still Hermione tried with him.

“Hello, Cagey,” she said, pushing a smile to her lips.

“Master is in the lab,” he informed her in a corrosive tone of voice. “Dinner will be served at 9. Cagey will now take Mistress’ trunk to her chamber.” _Mistress dripped_ off his thin, nearly white lips like an insult.

“That’s all right,” Hermione rushed to say. “I can take it myself.”

“Mistress always does everything herself,” he said, making it sound like that was a terrible character flaw. “Very well. Cagey will leave then.”

He vanished before she could utter another word.

As she levitated her trunk up the endlessly curved main staircase, all the many portraits lining the ashen walls glowered at her.

“Home, sweet hell,” she muttered under her breath, a recent conversation with the Head of her House replaying in her mind. It was a difficult enough subject to broach with her husband but she became determined to it bring it up as soon as possible.

# # #

After she installed herself in the more modest room she had chosen on the first floor in the West Wing. The West Wing was the most modern part of the house and by modern she meant the 1920s. The rest of the house felt too much like an overly cluttered museum for her taste. Then she clambered downstairs towards the green house in the East Wing. Adjacent to it, there was an abandoned, decrepit potions lab that her husband had taken to restoring.

She knocked on the door of the lab after only the briefest hesitation. She was nothing if not brave. Severus Snape yanked the door opened almost immediately. He looked much like he had in his days as a member of the Hogwarts’ academical staff, dressed from head to toe in black robes with his dark, nearly shoulder long hair neatly combed back.

Hermione shot for a smile that she was almost positive that it had come out as a grimace. “Hullo,” she greeted.

“Oh… hello.”

Yeah, he had definitely been hoping she had run off to France!

“Dinner will be at 9… as usual,” he said in that deep, cavernous voice that bore the faint edge of a mocking tone, his enunciation crisper than it was his wont.

“I know…. Cagey told me.”

“Good.” The word dripped just from the top of his lips.

The air was beginning to get charged and all of her good intentions regarding him were beginning to fade, replaced by incremental anger.

“May I come in?”

“I am afraid I am rather busy at the moment.”

“Oh, really? What are you brewing?” she asked with a cheer she didn’t actually feel.

“A potion,” he replied, uttering each letter as clearly as possible, as if he were back at school speaking to an especially dense student.

“What kind of potion?” Two could play this game.

“Hermione, if you do not mind, I do not come to your place of work to bother you.”

Ouch! That had stung. Nobody could do disdain quite like this man.

She couldn’t keep in the sigh this time. “Fair enough. I was hoping we could talk when you can spare me a few minutes.”

He seemed to perk up slightly at that. “You would like an annulment,” he said mildly.

“No,” she shot back with a glare. It wasn’t that she didn’t want an out ahead of term, it was just that she refused to take it over his assumption that she was a cheater.

“There is nothing to get yourself riled up over, Hermione,” he said reasonably. “I have made it perfectly clear from the beginning that you were free to seek yourself whatever partner you may wish.”

“And I have made it perfectly clear that I am not the type to sneak around with a man while being married to another, regardless of the circumstances of said marriage,” she tossed, fury scorching through her patience. She was sick and tired of all of this: the press constantly chasing after her, making her feel as if she was living in an aquarium, the public attention, the rumours and the innuendos that make her wary of going out with her friends and colleagues. And she was perfectly content to take it all out on him. Ron and Harry knew she wasn’t the person the papers painted her to be. After teaching her for years and after the War, how could he believe that she was?

“You seem to have changed your mind,” he answered, his words slow and heavy.

“He is from the French Ministry of Magic and he showed an interest in the new law for the house elves that I am proposing. That was what we were discussing when Rita snapped that awful picture.”

He raised a skeptical eye-brow at her, contempt written clearly across his features, his gaze making her feel like a particularly nasty bug that he was studying. “I am not interested in any details,” he articulated calmly. “Our marriage is a sham. If you wish for an earlier way out of it, which I cannot recommend strongly enough, all you have to do is say so. Other than that, I do not care what you do and with whom.”

“I am not cheating,” she shouted the words she wanted to throw in the face of Rita Skeeter, every other reporter who had ever followed her around as well as to every person whose judgmental eyes she had had to face of late. There were many other things she wanted to yell, things like _Let me be!,_ but she held her tongue about those. Unlike just about anyone else, her husband had done nothing but let her be. “Come back with me to my room and I’ll show you just how much I’m not sleeping with anybody!” The words were out of her mouth faster than her brain could have stopped them. Horror kept her mouth open for a few moments longer than it was necessary for her rushed, huffed, ill-fated last sentence to come out.

His expression shuttered closed, his gaze darkening, his brows knotting closer together. “Might I suggest that you don’t issue invitations you have no intention of following through with?” He sounded infinitely patient and only mildly irritated. A moment later he disappeared before the door to the lab that was shut in her face with a sharp snick.

TBC


	2. Into The Storm

To say that dinner was awkward was an understatement of massive proportions. Fortunately the ground-level dinning hall was not only wide but also benefiting from a ridiculously long table. Spiral black and burgundy candles floated above, lending soft, gauzy light to the atmosphere. It was all rather surreal and Citizen Kane-ish. Though she would have preferred to eat in her room, given how her earlier confrontation with Snape had gone, she still came down for dinner, determined to relay her conversation with Professor Mcgonagall to him.

“Good evening,” she said warily, taking the only seat still available, the one across the very long table from him.

He looked up from his plate but it was difficult to make out his expression from that distance and in that light. “Good evening,” he replied, his tone impervious to any reading.

The fine china set looked as expensive as she remembered it, as did the silverware and the ornate crystal glasses. Cagey served her a kind of beef dish. Food here was always rich. The elf filled her glass too, though she didn’t usually drink, before going away.

“I talked to Prof… to Minerva the other day,” she said after taking a few bites of that odd beef stew. It wasn’t bad, albeit too fat for her palate.

“Did you now?” he enunciated acerbically.

“She invited me to hold a few guest lectures at Hogwarts.”

“Congratulations are in order then.” His tone held no congratulatory note in it.

“Thank you,” she said, pretending not to notice the manner in which he had spoken. “She said she’d been wanting to visit you but you turned her down every time.”

He meticulously stabbed at something on his place, took a mouthful and chewed for a long minute. “I don’t think that neither Minerva, nor I can endure the burden of gratitude hovering above us. We have always been civil to each other but never friends. I see no reason to pretend that we are now.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that we don’t want to pretend to be your friends just because we feel obligated to you?” she began carefully, attentive to avoid rising her voice again. “Has it ever occurred to you that we simply want to apologize for misjudging and mistreating you?”

“Tell me this then: do none of your and your friends’ apologies come from a place of obligation?”

Hermione took a sip of her wine. It was tangy to the taste and she had no appetite for it but she needed something to do in order to stall before answering him.

“Nobody feels obligated,” she said, not sure that it was the truth. “We’re just grateful for everything you’ve done. Our victory would not have been possible without you.”

He waved a dismissive hand and took a gulp of his wine as well. “It’s a gratitude I would gladly wish to be spared from. You should feel yourself released from feeling or expressing it. Also, please, tell your friends and Minerva, for that matter, to try and do the same.”

“Including the gratitude she wanted me to send you for the new brooms you’d sent the Slytherin quidditch team?”

“Since my former house’s team routinely defeated the team of her own former house, how sincerely grateful do you imagine her to be?”

Hermione decided to ignore that particular jab. “Anyway, she also wanted me to tell you that since you would not return to your former job of teaching Potions, she would like to invite you to sit on the Hogwarts Board of Governors.”

“Is the reconstruction going that bad?” he asked conversationally. “Very well, I will send her a sizable donation from my newly found fortune but I have no intention of ever again connecting myself to that place in any shape or form.”

“Actually, Minerva insisted that no donation was necessary but that she needs you if she is to build a better Hogwarts that will produce less dark wizards and witches.”

“What possessed her to think that I of all people could help her with that? I am dark wizard myself, a former Death Eater and former head of the only house at Hogwarts that created more of my kind.”

“You’re not a dark wizard,” she said quietly.

“Truly? Don’t you think I should be the judge of what and who I am or I am not?”

She shook her head, abandoning her utensils on the side of her plate. She had lost her appetite. “You spied for Dumbledore. You almost died saving us all.”

“But first I was a genuine Death Eater, a dark wizard and a faithful follower of Voldemort.”

He was baiting her. She could tell. “You betrayed him.”

“In order to betray somebody, one must first pledge allegiance to them. Would you like to know what one had to do in order to become a Death Eater?”

Hermione hid a wince. “You were cleared of all charges. Twice.”

“Some, and I doubt they are in the minority, would say that I escaped just punishment twice.”

“You couldn’t convince the entire Wizengamot that you are villain. What makes you think you can convince me?”

He didn’t answer that one immediately, his mouth forming a single, narrow line, his face turning to cold stone. She had noticed this kind of reaction before whenever his trial came up. When he spoke again, the words were stilted and dripping with venom. “Many were cleared by the Wizengamot, not just me. Might I remind you of the Malfoys? They only had to pay a fine that barely made a dent in their considerable fortune. Therefore, one can only conclude that the Wizengamot is easily swayed.”

“They were still clamoring for you to receive the Dementors’ Kiss before Harry testified.” Hermione shuddered, as the memory of the trial asserted itself, recalling the angry cries and the angry glares, as Snape had been dragged in, looking as if he were at death’s door and leaning heavily on a cane, a mere shadow of the man they had known. Harry, who had volunteered to defend him when nobody would, had rushed forward to support him only to be held back by disproportionately heavy guard, given that their charge could barely stand. She, Ron and Minerva had exchanged uncertain glances. Luna had been uncharacteristically quiet and even Neville, who had once so feared Snape, had appeared worried. They had all been afraid they would fail to save the man who had protected them for years and had been instrumental in their victory against Voldemort.

“Well, then it seems that it is I who is indebted to Potter, not the other way around,” he ground out at long last, saying Harry’s family name as if it were an obscenity.

Of course, now they all knew why Snape detested Harry’s father. Her heart went out to him. She had been bullied at Hogwarts too, but at least, she had not been alone. She had been surrounded by friends who had supported and defended her at every turn. She had even scored a few victories against Draco, who was not the sharpest the tool in the box, while his cohorts were utter idiots. But James Potter and his friends had been smart and far better organized and they had never let up. And Snape had only had Lily and after a misplaced insult spoken in a moment of anger, he had lost her too. She couldn’t imagine how much harder things had been for him.

“Harry doesn’t think so,” she said after a pregnant pause and took another small drink of her wine.

“Thankfully, I no longer have to concern myself with what he thinks or doesn’t think. He’s no longer my responsibility.”

They were interrupted by Cagey clearing away their plates in the blink of an eye in order to bring the second course: a thick and viscous soup that looked wholly unappealing. Hermione still took a few spoonfuls out of courtesy. It tasted as weird as it looked. Outside the wind howled like a restless werewolf underneath a full moon, pushing against the uneven barrier of the ancient windows. This house needed a major renovation but Hermione was uneasy suggesting it. She didn’t want to give him the impression that she was making herself at home here.

She sneaked a glance across the table at him. He seemed entirely too focused on his soup and not inclined to continue their conversation.

“Minerva would be expecting an answer,” she tried again.

“Then she would be expecting it for a very long time,” he barked back.

“She won’t accept your donation without you taking your place on the Hogwarts Board,” she pointed out. “You’re not the only one capable of being stubborn, you know.”

His face might have been obscured in shadows but the glare he shot her penetrated them in order to bear into her own eyes. “You have conveyed the message entrusted to you. You claim not to want an annulment. Why are you still here then?”

“Throwing me out during dinner doesn’t demonstrate the best of manners,” she supplied. Early in their so-called marriage, he had lectured her a few times on her supposed lack of manners. It felt satisfying to throw it all in his face.

“I do not care at present,” he bit back testily. “Feel free to let yourself out. Preferably right at this moment.”

“I am your wife, if only on paper. You can’t just throw me out. This is supposed to be both our house.”

That had turned out to be the exceptionally wrong thing to say. His spoon clinked as it dropped back in his soup and his chair flew up against the wall. He stood up in an instant, his robes rustling and ruffling in dark haze around him as he did. His wand was in his hand and poised but no spell was forthcoming. Just to be on the safe side, Hermione pulled her wand too but hid it in her lap, her fingers clenched tightly around it.

“Get out,” he commanded in that imperious manner of his. “Now!”

He really should know by now that Hermione was not one to be ordered about, even if the one attempting it was quite possibly the most powerful wizard in the world right now.

“No!” She calmly, demonstratively took another spoonful of that awful soup.

He lowered his wand but her triumph was short-lived. “Oh, go annoy that visiting Frenchman of yours!”

That did it. Hermione jumped to her feet too. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not sleeping with Louis-Philippe or with anyone else for that matter?”

“How many times do I have to tell you I do not care what you do, as long as you do it as far away from me as possible?”

“Fine,” she bit out, wondering at the feeling of defeat that came over her. She stowed away her wand. “I’ll be gone first thing in the morning.” She turned to leave but his voice called after her.

“Make sure to take the hypocritically well-meaning wishes of your friends with you as well.”

She whirled around. “They are not hypocritical.”

He put away his wand too. “If you and your friends had truly meant me any good, you would have let me die. Or at least, allowed the Dementors to have me.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“First, you won’t let me be the judge of what I am. Now you’re not letting me be the judge of what I mean. It’s all you and your saintly friends do. Obligate everyone to conform to your narrow view of what and who they should be.”

Hermione started to tread towards him. “Don’t you understand? You’re free! Dumbledore is gone. So is Voldemort. You can start anew, have a life of your own and be happy.”

“Happy?” He scoffed. “You naive, silly child!”

She stopped right in front of him. He was again glaring down in that way that made her feel like a hapless bug he was studying. But Hermione was nothing if not relentless. Everyone who knew her could attest to that. “Is this about Harry’s mother? Look, I know you loved her but it’s okay for you to allow yourself to move on. This thing with us will be over soon. And you can find someone else and have a family, children of your own….”

His gaze only darkened further. “What do you know about love?”

She saw his wand going up a split second too late.

“Legilimens,” he said simply.

Even if Harry had not mentioned them, albeit seldom and reluctantly, Snape’s exceptional skills with Legilimency and Occlumency were beyond obvious, given that he had managed to trick even Voldemort himself. He tore into her mind like a vicious storm taking apart a house that happened to be on its path. It didn’t exactly hurt but it wasn’t comfortable easy. He sifted through her memories as if they were pages of a book, pushing aside her resistance if it were nothing. Still, resist, she did, or at least, she tried, summoning all her fury and accumulated frustrations, as she attempted to fling him out.

_Do you think your emotions are going to stop me?_

His poison dipped velvet baritone was derisive as it echoed within her head.

_No, they make it easier for me._

He parted her fury like a wave, sinking in deeper and deeper, tossing aside her defenses as if they were broken toys merely cluttering his way. She attempted to struggle and fight back, even if she had no recourse, to weapons in her arsenal, the few Occlumency skills she had been taught at Hogwarts sliding off his like water, making no dent. She could have asked him to stop, begged him to even, but she refused to give him the satisfaction.

_Yes,_ he echoed in her head again. _Beg for me to stop and I shall._

_Do your worst_ , she sniped both out loud and in her mind.

_That was most unwise!_

Her latest defensive move only spurned him on and he cracked her mind opened like he would a nut.

_She’s a nightmare… honestly… no wonder she hasn’t got any friends._

_How romantic,_ Snape commented dryly.

_Get out of my head_ , she yelled.

_Ask nicely and I might._

She summoned all her mental forces to cast him out only for him to brush them off as if they were lint on his immaculate dark robes. It was then that she felt the touch, the faintest of promises of the mind hidden behind the potency of the spell he had unleashed upon her. It was like touching live current, equally awe-inducing and fearsome, magnificent and bright and terrible. It was the hint of a mind like she had never even thought possible, let alone hope to experience for herself. She stopped resisting at once, enthralled and eager to sense more of him but it didn’t come. He glided past a few memories of her and Ron, one kiss here, one of them holding hands there, another of them talking by the sea; he even found that of her dancing with Viktor Krum. Then he withdrew as swiftly as he had invaded, barely scratching the surface of her mind and of her few memories of love.

Hermione staggered backwards, feeling behind her until she found the wall for support. She was trembling just like the branches of the trees outside had to be in the vicious wind sweeping through the night. She heard him come closer but she shrank back, not because she was worried about a repeat of what had just happened, but because she was embarrassed, thinking that he left her mind so quickly, because the little he had seen had been mediocre or even unpleasant.

“I… I think… I’ll go back to my room now,” she stuttered, mortified to hear her voice sound just as rattled as she felt. “Thank Cagey for dinner for me,” she added in a rush.

She spun around and hurtled out of the hall, focusing to keep her feet as steady as she could. Then she jogged to her chosen bedroom, her mind a whirlwind. She shut the door after her with a hand that had yet to stop shaking. A lightning cut through the sky, spilling a blinding gleam of light into the darkened room. It mirrored the all too brief experience of touching Snape’s mind almost to perfection.

# # #

He sat in ridiculous 18 th  century armchair with an impossibly high and ornate back by the window in the closest bedroom to the potions lab, watching the play of lightnings crisscrossing through the wet darkness of storm outside. Thunder cracked every now and then, enhancing the feral beauty of the display of unleashed nature . In retrospect, he regretted touching the girl’s mind, though what he had done wasn’t even a small fraction of what he had put her friend Potter through when attempting to teach him Occlumency. It wasn’t that her mind was dull and uninteresting; he hadn’t really seen enough of it to form an opinion, nor had he sought to. B ut then what had he been hoping to achieve by it? To show her that all she knew of love was mere teenage infatuation. What did it matter? That was all many people knew of love, even if they lived for a long time. Sometimes teenage infatuation blossomed into something steadier, deeper that lasted people through the years. He had been head of a house at Hogwarts. He had seen it happen often enough. And sometimes it didn’t. It hadn’t happened for her and Weasley. It was probably happening for others just now. What did it matter? What difference did it make to _him_?

She had infuriated him, however, with her absurd claims that he could be happy. Happy? Him? She really was a silly girl with her head filled with childish, romantic ideals. But then, though she had lived through a war, true horror had escaped her, because she hadn’t been the one to commit it. What was her greatest crime during the war? Robbing a bank maybe? What was that compared to what he had done during two wars? No, Hermione Granger and her precious friends had managed to make it through the war not only with their lives but most importantly, with their hands clean. They had no idea how truly blessed they were. Silly children, the lot of them! No, Hermione had no concept of what it meant to plunge your hands so deep into blood and filth that you could never be clean again. And she had the gall to assert that he could be happy. Even worse, that he could find someone else, when she, herself, had reacted to the notion of him touching her with sheer horror.

To consider that there could be someone else for him other than Lily was blasphemy to him. He would rather stop breathing, not that his life meant much to him, anyway. Granger didn’t understand because, of course, she didn’t. Because to her, love was a game children played, with hand-holding and clumsy kisses and whispered promises in the face of impending death when one would certainly not live to keep them. But even if she had had a better understanding of what Lily was and always would be to him, her own reaction to the prospect of physical intimacy with him should have clued her in as to just how preposterous the idea of him finding someone was.

Not that he blamed Hermione for her revulsion. He had a mirror, he could see himself. He could imagine how much worse he was in the eyes of a beautiful young woman such as herself. Furthermore, he knew what she didn’t, what he hid beneath his ample robes. It wasn’t just the disfiguring scar Nagini had left him with, but the others as well. So many others, covering just about every inch of him. Scars given to him by his father, by the boys at the Muggle school he had gone to before Hogwarts, by James Potter and his friends at Hogwarts, by the battles of two wars, by the Dark Lord himself when Severus had failed or displeased him. Even by Hagrid’s ludicrously named cerberus. There hardly had been a creature in his life—man or beast—who hadn’t scarred him one way or another. Some scars were not visible, but others made hideous marks marring his skin.

It was one thing he couldn’t, not even in his darkest hours, reproach Lily, either. Going for the handsome athlete, the Gryffindor hero with perfect skin and perfect hair, the boy all the girls dreamed of, even those in Slytherin. No sane woman in possession of a pair of functional eyes would have chosen him over James Potter. That part, at least, he had always comprehended.

Though he didn’t often imbibe, especially not after what had happened the last time around, he regretted not having had more wine at dinner. These were thoughts better entertained with an alcohol blurred mind. Thoughtless, thoughtless girl! What did she know of love and pits of despair it could drive one to! Unbidden, the memory of finding out about Lily’s engagement slipped through. He had found out from the odious Daily Prophet where the announcement had been printed. He had gone out then to do something he had never done until then: find himself a woman to spend the night with. The shame of it still weighed on him but he had wanted to prove himself as well to Lily, who would never even know, that he didn’t care, that she hadn’t shattered him all over again. He still remembered and felt the guilt of the morning after, as if he had just cheated on the woman he loved, the woman about to be married to another man.

It had happened a few more times after that and every time it had ended with a variation of the same. With him at Spinner’s End, curled on his bed, crying in his pillow and begging for the forgiveness of an absent Lily. He had always felt that each encounter chipped at the purity of his love for Lily. He couldn’t even conceive how much worse a full-blown relationship would have felt. When Lily died, he had stopped entirely, living only for the things he could do in her memory. Now he was out of those too. He sank further into his chair, letting the familiar tidal wave of grief wash over him. Once that had subsided somewhat, he started regretting what he had done to Hermione.

It wasn’t the girl’s fault, after all. Surely, she was grating and an unwelcome presence in his life most of the time, but their marriage had to frustrate her too. It had to be hard to search for a partner when everyone thought her to be a married woman. Still, despite his assurances and the initial terms of their marriage, his ego had been bruised. The man with whom she had been photographed had a good ten years on her, but he was still younger than Severus, and devastatingly handsome. Add to that the obvious, albeit unsurprising, disgust he elicited in her and he had lashed out. It was all for naught, of course. He would have never accepted her ill-conceived invitation, even if she had meant it. She was painfully young and she was… she had been his student. And above all and despite everything she had been through, she was still pure of heart. Certainly pure enough to believe love and happiness were still available to him. There was no way he would have laid his blood-stained hands on her and dragged her down to his level. There had to be an end to the number of lives he spoiled and here it was where he drew his line.

He pried himself out of his seat with some difficulty. Though he was overall more or less himself again, he still had the occasional tremor in his right side. Despite this, the bed did not present a welcome respite. The dreams came when he slept. They had been coming steadily since before Lily’s death. And in his dreams it was never his enemies who screamed but his victims.

TBC


	3. Trial and Error

_A year earlier_

They were huddled together in the drawing room of Professor Mcgonagall’s Hogsmeade cottage, Hermione, Harry, Ron, Pomona Sprout and Mcgonagall herself. The air was fraught with frazzled nerves and the utter discomfort of the conversation they were having, despite the fact that Mcgonagall had made them tea and served them scones and jam.

“So there’s definitely going to be a trial?” Hermione asked. “What about the evidence we gave?”

Sprout and Mcgonagall exchanged a look. The first spoke up. “Severus was never well-liked by… well, anyone. Some felt he had escaped justice after the first War. And then there’s Dumbledore… Albus was beloved and respected. Many are crying for his killer to be punished in an exemplary manner.”

“But I’ve explained…,” Harry started, staring at his tea cup as if it contained the answer to all their questions and doubts.

Snape’s memories had colored Harry’s perception of Dumbledore but how and to what extent he was yet to tell his friends. Hermione and Ron shared a look of their own. Harry sat at Ron’s elbow, pale and grim yet resolute. Whatever decision he had taken was a foregone conclusion, he had only to impart it to them as well.

“You might have to do it again before the Wizengamot,” Mcgonagall said, sympathy evident in her voice.

At Hermione’s side, Ron cringed. Hermione understood. Defending Snape once and in writing had been complicated enough for all of them. A repeat of that in public would not be easy on any of them. Yet it had to be done. Without Snape, they would have never won the war.

“I don’t understand. Doesn’t he have any friends?” Hermione interjected, hoping there might be someone else who could take on the burden of defending Snape. “Or family?”

Mcgonagall looked down, took a measure sip of her tea before she carefully placed the cup back on its delicate, cream-colored saucer. “I’ve only known him to have one friend.”

“My mother,” Harry added quietly.

Mcgonagall and Sprout both nodded. Mcgonagall continued. “As for family, his mother was disowned by her parents when she married a Muggle. The Prince line is old and very prestigious.”

“Like the Black and the Malfoy?” Hermione wanted to know.

“Older still,” Sprout replied. “They were initially from Florence, weren’t they, Minerva? I am not sure how far back they go in Italy but they claim that all the way to Ancient Rome. They came here in 1513, I think, when Niccolo Principe married an English pure-blood witch. In time, they changed their surname to the English version of Prince. They are exceedingly wealthy too. Do they still have properties in Europe?”

Mcgonagall scrunched her face in a short-lived grimace. It was obvious she didn’t think much of the family of Snape’s mother, despite their wealth and prestige. “Your guess is as good as mine, Pomona. However, I do know this: they believe believe in the supremacy of the pure-bloods just like the Blacks and the Malfoys do. As far as I know, neither of them has ever acknowledged Severus’ existence for he is a half-blood, you see. His only cousin went to Durmstrang so I doubt the two even ever met. With both his parents having passed away while Severus was still at Hogwarts, there really isn’t anyone else left.”

Sprout confirmed Mcgonagall’s story with an inclination of her head. “I’ve never heard him to speak of anyone… a friend, a relative.. or something else…. He lived at school, spent most of his time in his lab or in his House. I’m not even sure…. Minerva, did he go anywhere during the summer?”

Minerva frowned, deep in thought. “I think he did sometimes. Where to, he never said. One would assume he went to his parents’ house in Cokeworth.”

_This is getting sad,_ Hermione thought. The two professors before her had worked with Snape for years, came in contact with him on a daily basis and yet they seemed to know so little about him. They knew more about the awful family who had rejected him for the crime of having a Muggle father. Was he that disagreeable to his colleagues too or was it more to the story that met the eye?

Throughout their talk, Ron had been busying himself buttering a scone, adding jam and eating it. Now that he was done, he finally spoke up. Hermione guessed he had been ruminating.

“Are we sure Snape doesn’t deserve to stand trial and be punished for what he did?” Ron wondered. “Just because he spied for Dumbledore, it doesn’t mean he didn’t awful things as a Death Eater. It doesn’t mean he didn’t kill Dumbledore. He’s not exactly innocent, you know.”

Hermione lowered her gaze to her lap. Nobody argued Ron’s. It was what they were all thinking. It was what she, herself, had been thinking on and off ever seen they had gone to retrieve Snape’s body for a proper burial only to find him still alive. Just barely and at death’s door but alive, nonetheless. Nobody wanted to give voice to it but Snape’s death would have been easier on all of them. It would have saved them and the entire wizarding world of a lot of uncomfortable questions about the war and its implications.

Harry’s expression darkened. “If there’s to be a trial, it’s not for us to determine guilt or innocence but for the Wizengamot. But first they need to have all the facts. We can’t just let them feed him to the Dementors. We owe him too much.” He paused and took an audible breath. “I’ll volunteer to defend him.”

“Git! He’d hate that,” Ron commented.

“That’s just a fringe benefit,” Sprout said with a wry smile.

Determination colored Harry’s face. He wore the look of someone about to be forced to eat a particularly nasty dish but who was firm about doing it, anyway. “Whether he likes it or not, I’ll still defend him and testify before the Wizengamot. He was ready to die for me to live and win. He very nearly did! He could have saved himself and told Voldemort that he wouldn’t become the true owner of the Elderwand or what a mistake he was making in going after me. His silence, not to mention his years of service as a triple agent, saved me. He saved us all. It’s my turn now!”

Mcgonagall gazed at him with proud affection. “What can we do to help, Harry?”

“I need a spell. I have to be able to show the Wizengamot everything I saw of Snape’s memories. And I do mean everything. Everybody knows Snape, the Death Eater. I’ll show them Snape, the man.”

# # #

Severus had known he wouldn’t survive a second war against Voldemort. He just hadn’t known how, when or where it would happen but he had known that it would. It made little difference to him. He had been ready to die ever since he had held Lily’s dead boy in his arms. He had been hoping for death or at least, the Dementors’ Kiss ever since the first war had ended. But Dumbledore had robbed him of that. Mind you, not because he cared for Severus but because, much like Severus himself, Albus had realized that the Dark Lord was not truly gone and that he would return one day. And then Dumbledore would need his spy infiltrated in Voldemort’s inner circle. So it was fitting that Dumbledore, who had robbed him of the peace of death the first time, would be the one to help him get it now.

Severus imagined there wasn’t a witch or a wizard out there who wasn’t clamoring for his head. The only reason he was in St. Mungo’s instead of Azkeban was because they wanted to make an example out of him. He was a traitor to both sides and the killer of a popular wizard most loved or at least, liked. And everyone detested him. They should get satisfaction now. He had no doubt he was headed for the Kiss. He couldn’t care less. As long as it provided oblivion.

He had been told by an elderly and maternal mediwitch that he had been in a coma for three months after being found half dead in the Shrieking Shack. Apparently, he couldn’t catch a break, because, despite a few close calls during his coma, he had, against all odds and expectations, survived. Furthermore, he was getting better and stronger every day, which meant that his trial would happen soon. Nobody would wish for him to regain his full strength and make a break for it. He had no intention to do so but then they didn’t know that. That was why his only visitors had been the heavy guard he had been placed under. Not that he expected anyone else to come.

Nobody bore him any affection at Hogwarts, which was just as well. He didn’t like them, either, and downright hated that place. Even the students in his own House, whom he had nurtured and cared for them the best he could, given Dumbledore’s preposterous idea of placing him of all people anywhere near children, would want to distance themselves from him, lest they would be tainted by association. He couldn’t blame them. They were Slytherin, after all. Also why bother with a dead man walking who wanted nobody’s tender feelings, anyway? No, he preferred to know the Slytherins as safe from the wrath of the winning party as they could be. He knew better than anyone how Slytherins had been treated even before the rise of Voldemort and things had only gotten worse after the first war. It would be so much more worse now. He almost regretted that he wouldn’t be there to protect those in his House. Almost!

# # #

Everything about the trial had been designed to humiliate him. Severus was not surprised. He had expected as much. It was fortunate then that he had grown inured to humiliation. The mediwitch in charge of his care had attempted to get him a reprieve, appalled that a man in her care, who was barely able to stand at that, was to be dragged before the courts. Severus had told her not to bother. Still the woman had persisted, much to his annoyance. Why couldn’t they just let him die? It served the mediwitch right that both the Ministry and the Wizengamot had walked all over her objections.

He had caught glimpses of himself before his guards had taken him to stand trial. He had always been thin but now he was downright gaunt, the skin of his face so pale it was nearly translucent, stretched as it was over protruding cheekbones. His dark eyes looked devoid of their usual edge, dull and blood-shot, while his hair hang about his face in overgrown greasy strands. Beneath the high color of his customary black robe, Nagini’s bite throbbed. He had a steady tremor in the affected half of his body and the cane was making him look even more as an invalid. But then life had never afforded him any dignity. Why should his death be different?

He was dragged unceremoniously before the Wizengamot then dumped just as unceremoniously on the chair in the center of the room. His head was swimming and his stomach roiled. Pain shot sharply from his neck and spread in his veins lighting fast. Every nerve he had felt as if it had just been seared with a red-hot poker. He had a moment of disorientation and fervently hoped he would not humiliate himself further by vomiting what little bile he had in his stomach. He had refused to eat that morning. What was the point? He was a dead man, anyway.

The moment he had appeared, the entire courtroom erupted with sounds that hisses around him like the voices of a thousand and more snakes. He was able to discern a word here and there. _Murder_ _er_ _! Death Eater! Traitor! Slytherin! Justice for Dumbledore!_

He saw a host of Hogwarts professors and students in one of the front rows. They all looked worried. What did they have to be worried about? They would soon get justice for their precious Dumbledore. Oh! They probably feared he would tell the truth about his role as a triple agent and receive lenience. They shouldn’t be concerned. He had no intention of doing that.

Potter walked to stand by his side. Was that a blazer he was wearing over his jeans? Why so formal, albeit in Muggle clothes? He had probably come to ensure his conviction. After all, he had been an eye-witness to Dumbledore’s murder. Potter began to speak and the entire place fell silent at once. Oh right, Potter was the Chosen One!

As Potter began to speak, he lifted his wand and cast a spell that projected a gauzy dome over the room. Images began to fill it almost instantly. And then Severus wished vomiting had remained the greatest embarrassment to fear that day. Potter left no stone unturned. He eviscerated Severus precisely and methodically for all to see until he stood there, stripped of skin and muscle, with his raw, bleeding insides for all to see. It was cruelest thing anyone had ever done to him. Crueler than seven years of torment from James Potter and the Marauders. Crueler than all of the Dark Love’s punishments. Crueler than what Dumbledore had asked him to do, taking pound after pound of Severus’ flesh until he felt like he had nothing left to give. But apparently he did and Potter was taking it away increment by increment.

His head whirled and his vision got momentarily blurry. He wanted to scream and beg. Beg for mercy and for Potter to stop. To stop exposing some of his most precious secrets and memories for all to gape at. To stop exposing him for who and what he was and had been. A terrified, lonely boy from the wrong of Cokeworth terrorized by a pack of his stronger, better looking and more esteemed classmates. An unloved man pining over a woman married to another. A spy forced to do atrocious things for both sides. Alone, hated, scorned by all, made to sink neck-deep into blood, horror and filth so that others could keep their hands clean and their souls blameless. A contemptible, pathetic creature miles away from the formidable wizard and professor he had been trying to project himself to be.

He wondered if he would be finally allowed the Kiss if he killed Potter right there and then. But he had no wand and his powers were still not restored yet for he was still too physically weak. He was shaking, the robe drenched in cold sweat at his back, his collar stifling. Surely the Wizengamot would not fall for Potter’s ridiculously transparent attempt to appeal to their sentimentality and let him walk a second time. Surely there was still at least one or two cool heads among them and surely those would prevail. They had to condemn him. If he had been in their shoes, he would have done it without a second’s thoughts. He had doled severe punishments for minor rules infractions committed by the students of Hogwarts. Surely these idiots had the sense not to let the Death Eater who had killed Dumbledore go free.

When Potter was finally, mercifully done and his projection dissipated into a myriad of tiny glimmers dispersing over the room, a stony silence befell them all. Severus’ wandering gaze fell on Hermione Grange. Her eyes were filled with tears and a pity so cloying he really thought he would vomit now. She actually tried to smile at him. She was struggling to be reassuring, he could tell. Oh, how he wished for his wand so he could hex that impertinent Miss Know-It-All. She had no right to pity. And Potter had had no right to tell. Those were his memories! The last drop of blood shed to protect _her_ child. The last weapon handed over for the defeat of Voldemort, a piece of his very soul, and Potter, son of his father that he was, had taken ownership of it and was misusing it. These memories, they didn’t belong to Potter. They were his or at least, they had been. They were a weapon to be utilized once then holstered forever. But Potter, much like his father, only took and took and it was never enough.

_That was not why I showed you all this_ , he wanted to shout.

But it was all for naught. He would have only humiliated himself further, if that were even possible. It was done! Potter had squeezed his heart of the last drop of blood and thrown the dried husk on the floor for the entire Wizengamot to examine.

It all happened in rapid succession after that. He was exonerated. Then Kingsley Shacklebolt stood up from the Minister’s seat and recommended Severuswas given the Order of Merlin, First Class, along the with the other War Heroes. Granger mouthed something he couldn’t understand. He hoped she was furious at how it had all turned out. It served her right for daring to pity him. The hall started to whirl faster around him. The bite twinged. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he tried to wrench himself away. He had enough of touches at St. Mungo’s. He saw no reason he should endure more, especially from Potter. Across the room from him, Granger lurched from her seat. He thought she might be screaming. What now?

“Help!… He needs help….”

The words, spoken in a high-pitched, nearly hysterical woman’s voice, vibrated in his ears as if from far away before darkness finally deigned to claim him. At last!

TBC


	4. A Good Night's Sleep

Pain slithered under her skin, spreading through her like a like burgeoning thorn blooming within her flesh. Laughter, sharp and manic, filled her ears, mixing in with the agony of her tormented body. Demented eyes stared at her with obvious glee. The laughter continued to mount, shriller and shriller, until it became a living, breathing creature onto its own. Hermione’s pain seemed to burst from the chortles alone. She jerked awake just as lighting shot over her, spilling blinding light into her room. Pain uncurled and unfurled within her and she screamed. It took her a moment to get her bearings and remember where she was. This was not Malfoy Manor, though the opulence was about the same. This house creaked and moaned like an old woman, drafty and uncomfortable in ways that the Malfoy residence hadn’t been.

Belatrix’s laughter rolled through the room, echoing from the corners, swirling in the howl of the storm outside. Hermione grabbed her wand with trembling fingers.

“Expelliarmus,” she shouted.

Every piece of furniture in the room rattled and something fell to the floor, shattering on impact.

Clenching her wand protectively to her chest, she murmured _Lumos Maxima_ under her breath. The bedroom came alight. It was empty. And silent. But that did not stop the laughter reverberating in her head. The skin of her scar itched. She pulled the sleeve of her flannel pyjama shirt. The letters carved into her arm were perfectly healed, the uneven, opalescent lines reflecting the light. _Mudblood._ She felt the heat of her tears streaming down her face.

Laughter erupted again from the corners. Hermione pointed the wand at it but it was immaterial, floating about her like a cloud of remembered misery. Bellatrix was gone, killed by Molly Weasley, and Hermione was torn between relief and the guilt of feeling elation at the death of another human being. In her darkest hours, she wished she had killed Bellatrix herself. On her best day, the thought brought her shame. How was she better than Bellatrix and those like her if she yearned to commit murder?

She had sought help for it but the healers at St. Mungo’s had pronounced her healthy. Even her other scars were gone. All but this one. The wizarding world was woefully behind the Muggle one when it came to psychiatric care. The notion was barely around. And she couldn’t just go to a Muggle therapist, not unless she wanted them to get the men in the white coats in order to lock her up when she started talking about witches, wizards and dark lords bent on world domination for the sake of conquering death and racial purity.

She knew what was wrong with her. She had never stopped reading Muggle books, her voracious mind always eager for more knowledge. So she had looked up her symptoms and discovered that she was suffering from something called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome or PTSD. There was no spell for that, no research, either, leaving traumatized witches and wizards to fend for themselves in the face of terrors that were not monsters or fantastic beasts but figments of the imagination.

She got out of bed and went into the ensuite to splash cold water onto her face. She knew from experience that sleep would be impossible now. She rarely slept through the night anymore, usually having to make do with four or five hours, if she was lucky. Tonight she hadn’t been.

She got dressed in the only set of Muggle clothes she had brought with her: a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and tennis shoes. Normally she would sit on the edge of her bed, wand in hand, waiting for a threat that never came, until it was time for her to get ready for work. She had grown up at a war. Peace was a hard habit to adopt.

A memory of touching live current flashed into her addled brain. There were so few wizards who were adept at both Occlumency and Legilimency so it was hardly surprising that nobody had tried to use mind-related magic for healing purposes but this could be an idea. And she was in the same house with possibly the greatest Occlumency and Legilimency expert left in the world, now that both Dumbledore and Voldemort were gone.

The laughter resounded again causing her to jump. She tightened her grip on the wand. The exhaustion and stress of the previous day were wearing her down, she could tell. Not completely sure what she was doing, she went in search of him. She felt a little like she was back at Hogwarts sneaking out of her bedroom at night to get up to some mischief with Ron and Harry, with the sword of Snape finding them out permanently over their heads. As a child, his looming presence had been terribly annoying. As an adult, she got his point a bit better now. He was a professor, responsible for their safety, and it had to be hard to carry out said responsibility with three students constantly bringing down the house, while the rest of the staff allowed them to get away with murder.

She didn’t know exactly where he slept but she figured his lab was a good place to start her search.

“Are you former Hogwarts habits truly that difficult to discard, Miss Granger?”

She nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned around quickly, wand pointed, ready to strike, and came face-to-face with Severus Snape. He was was still wearing black robes he had had on during the day, complete with cape, and flashing a lantern into her eyes.

“Do you sleep like that? Or are your own Hogwarts habits difficult to shake off, Professor Snape?”

The corners of his mouth twitched ominously. “What are you doing wandering through the mansion at this hour, Hermione?” he asked.

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Couldn’t it wait until morning?” he continued his inquiry. He was back to full inquisitorial Snape mode.

Oh, yeah! Just like at Hogwarts!

She shuddered at the memory of how night had gone until now. “Maybe it could,” she dead-panned.

He glowered at her. “What are you up to now, Hermione?”

“Nothing,” she replied, feeling caught and defensive all of the sudden. This was ridiculous! She was not longer at Hogwarts. She was no longer a child. He no longer had any authority over her. It wasn’t like he could dock her House points if he didn’t like what she had to say. “I wanted to speak to you about your skills with Occlumency and Legilimency.”

“I am through teaching you, dunderheads, anything. This applies to you and your two friends above all. You have the concentration stamina of an absent-minded hare.”

“Colourful as your insults might be, Professor,” she said, using his title again on purpose. “It’s not a lesson I want.”

“Then what do you want?” He was getting testier by the minute.

“I’ve been having these nightmares…. The healers claim I am fine but…. I don’t know what else to do… where else to go…. I thought the dreams would go away in time but instead they seem to getting worse.” She wet her suddenly parched lips with her tongue. “I think I mentioned them to you once before… when….”

“I know when,” he said darkly. He lowered the lantern. “Very well. Come on in then.”

He lead her into a bedroom not so dissimilar from her own if one discounted the absurd amount of purple in the furnishings. This house was long overdue for some sense and restoration. She also didn’t miss that the bed looked as though it had never been slept in.

“You are correct in assuming that Occlumency could be use in order to erect mental barriers against unwanted thoughts and memories but there have been far too few wizards and witches willing, not to mention, capable to experiment on this matter. There are two or three books I could lend you but they would not take you far. A skilled Occlumens is able to curb emotions to the point of suppression but it is normally done in order to lie to a Legilimens successfully or to resist the Imperious curse and the effects of the Veritaserum. To perform Occlumency as a healing method has seldom been attempted and the outcome has been uneven at best.”

“You’ve tried it, haven’t you?” she guessed.

His lips twitched again before settling in a firm, flat line. “Occlumency requires an extraordinary amount of willpower. Not many possess it.”

“I want to try.”

“Perhaps in the morning.”

She shook her head rubbing at eyes that felt gritty. “Can’t you do it? At least for tonight? I’ll let you into my head.”

“You are not likely to stop me, anyhow,” he commented imperiously. “You cannot sleep,” he diagnosed. “Perhaps a potion could be of help.”

“I’ve drunk every potion there is this year. I’ve even taken Muggle sleeping pills. Nothing worked.”

He studied her carefully, his dark expression offering her nothing to go on. “There is something,” he said. “The Dark Lord used to invade the minds of his victims in order to torture them with agonizing visions designed to to drive them into insanity. Of course, a different kind of imagery, more soothing, could be introduced instead, but the method would be the same, which means it would be painful at first, even if you do not resist the intrusion. Moreover, it would be only a temporary solution but the problems it could create could turn out to be long-term.”

“What kind of problems?”

“That would depend greatly on how keen you are on my rooting around in your head, filling it with images.”

“But would it get me at least one good night’s sleep?”

“I am uncertain and somewhat doubtful.”

“I want to try.”

“As you wish. You might want to concentrate on a pleasant thought or memory, something that gives you peace. I shall attempt to extrapolate from there in creating the visions.”

A shiver of anticipation travelled through her at the thought of once more touching that exceptional mind of his but she stomped on the thought. It would not do for him to catch her entertaining such notions.

“Look me in the eye,” he commanded.

There was quite a hypnotic quality to his voice, she realized. How had she failed to notice before? Shaking her head to clear it of that thought too, she locked eyes with him. His orbs were inky black, like two pools of darkness drawing her into their infinite, murky depths.

Hermione thought of something simple, just hanging out with Ron and Harry on the grounds of Hogwarts in their earlier, happier years, talking and laughing. The pain Severus spoke of actually translated to a mild discomfort like ripping off a band-aid. Then he was in and the electric torrent of his mind wrapped around hers like giant protective wings cocooning her.

The image in her mind shifted. She was no longer with Ron and Harry but alone. Flowers began to bloom amid the green grass but they were not ordinary ones. These had fantastical petals, some shaped like hexagons, others matched diamond patterns while some showed forms she had never seen before or considered possible. The colours were incredible too, vivid and inviting. A flagrant zephyr ruffled her hair gently and she heard the murmur of a river nearby. When she looked, she saw that the river flowed like living silver, glowing in the sunlight. She saw her mother’s face, felt the safety of her father’s hug, heard Ron and Harry call out to her, their voices filled with a joy she hadn’t heard in years, she glimpsed Luna’s smile. She went to the river, waving, indicating that her friends and loved ones should follow along, and plunged her hands into the strange water, lifting them filled with a sparkling dew that instead of mirroring her face, showed her the home of her childhood. Her fingers glimmered and she started to laugh. The sound of laughter was her own and it was just as freeing and pleasant as she recalled from her genuinely cheerful days.

# # #

Hermione woke to semi-darkness, feeling more rested and refreshed than she could remember being in two years. Maybe more. She stretched like a content cat and yawned. How long had she been asleep? And where was she for that matter? She failed to place the black and mauve bed sheets. In an instant she recognized the room, despite the meagre light allowed in by the drawn curtains. It was the bedroom Severus had taken her into. Under the duvet she was fully dressed. Only her tennis shoes were on the plush Persian carpet by the bed. She sat up, confused, then she noted the heavy-set pendulum on the wall opposite from her. It indicated ten minutes past six. Four additional hours of sleep in one night was not half bad and they had certainly invigorated her like nothing could of late.

She got out of bed, put on her shoes and went to pull one curtain aside. She had promised she would leave in the morning so she needed to start gathering her things already. When the outside world was revealed to her, she realized that the sun was not rising, it was setting. She had slept for sixteen hours straight.

She couldn’t believe it! She felt so happy she could jump for joy. A whole sixteen hours of uninterrupted, reposeful, dream free sleep. It felt like a small miracle. She was immensely grateful to Severus for making that happen. She knew he had a hard time accepting thanks but she couldn’t well leave without telling him.

Something nagged at her, though. He had said that Voldemort used to employ the same technique. Her elation drained quickly. If what he had done was something from Voldemort’s arsenal, it could only mean one thing: he had used Dark Magic to toy with her mind. Ire began to rise within her. At Hogwarts, she had learnt that anything having to do with the Dark Arts was inherently sinister. The only good and decent thing one could do when it came to Dark Magic was to defend oneself against it. There was no in-between. Infuriated, she put on her shoes and stormed out of the room.

She find the object of her wrath in his potions lab as she had expected.

“You are awake,” he noted, not even bothering to turn. He was in the process of arranging a few phials on an upper shelf.

“What have you done to me?” she demanded.

He paused, set down the phial in his hand and descended the three steps he had climbed up the ladder in order to turn and face her. His expression was forbidding. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Last night… what you did…. That was Dark Magic, wasn’t it?”

“I thought it was understood as much,” he pointed out reasonably.

Too reasonably for her liking! “Nothing was understood,” she shouted. “You took advantage of my sleep-deprivation to gain a backdoor key to my mind.”

“As I have amply demonstrated last night, I would require no trickery or back doors to invade your mind. All I need is the will to do so.”

He was right but his boasting of his abilities with mind magic offered her no solace. On the contrary, they only served to enrage her further. “In the future stay out of my head!”

“Gladly! It is, after all, a fairly insipid place to be.”

It was a low blow but it connected fully. His skill at Legilimency was only surpassed by his unique ability to cut to the bone with a single snide remark. It wasn’t the first time he was insulting her by any means, but still it felt somehow worse. After all, being called a know-it-all had never been an affront in her book but more of a backwards compliment. Insipid minded, however, was a whole other kettle of fish. Now that was an insult!

“I could say the same thing,” she spat back.

“Could you?” he asked, his voice low and sardonic. He took a step towards her. Then another. “Weren’t you the one likening contact with my mind to touching live current?”

Blimey! He had caught that.

He took another measured step in her direction. Hermione stepped back. She wasn’t afraid, though her stomach was trembling with nerves. If she had been afraid, she would have stood her ground. But for some reason she was backing away from him. He drew closer, towering over her, tall and dark and inscrutable safe for the derisive curve of his lips. Hermione’s back hit the wall behind her just as their eyes met. His eyes were so dark and yet so mesmerizing. She had never seen anyone’s pupils to be such a perfect pitch black. She remembered Slytherins had been connected to snakes ever since the founder of their House. What if he was hypnotizing her like some snakes did with their prey?

“These are dangerous games to be playing with a Slytherin,” he warned.

“I’m not playing any games,” she defended herself, feeling confounded. What was he on about?

His arm shout out, wry and black clad, and his palm spread on the wall next to her head. For the briefest of moments, time stood suspended. They were on the verge of falling. Onto what, she didn’t know.

“Clearly,” he said sarcastically. “You are not playing.”

He withdrew and turned so that she could have a clear path to the door. Hermione felt as if she had failed some unknown test. She hated failing any test, even one she had had no idea she was taking.

“This is familiar, though,” he added. “Every attempt I have made to come to the aid of you or your scattered-brained friends has always been misconstrued as a villainous act on my part.”

“That’s not true,” she said. Here she could defend herself and her friends. Harry had once been all that had stood between him and the Dementors’ Kiss.

“No?” Pure venom was injected into that deep baritone of this. Sarcasm-laced venom. The man was a master of inflections. “What about when I rushed to the Shrieking Shack to rescue three wayward students from what I thought to be a deranged mass murderer only to be hit with _Expelliarmus_ by your friend, Potter?”

A memory of him getting between her, Ron and Harry and an enraged werewolf entered her mind. His arms had even been spread wide open to shield them. He had her there!

“That or any other occasion when you might’ve helped us doesn’t give you the right to do what you did last night.”

“Which was what you requested. I have attempted to warn you. What did you think I meant when I told you this was something the Dark Lord availed himself to routinely?”

She gulped. “Is there a connection now between my mind and your own?”

She recognized his expression. It was one he wore often with especially dense students. His tone changed too, becoming even more patronizing, the pauses between his words longer, his inflection sharper.

“If a link was created between our minds, I assure you this was most unwanted and unintentional on my part. It happened as a mere side-effect. I have sealed my end of it the moment I realized its existence. Starved of connection, it should fade away in time.”

“How much time?”

“A few months should suffice.”

“But until then you have an unrestricted way into my mind,” she complained.

A hint of a dismissive smile floated on his pale lips. “Do not flatter yourself! I never feel tempted to become bored out of my skull. However, if you are partial to excruciating pain, I could extract your end of the link.”

“No,” she cried. “I don’t want you in my head again!”

“Or you could have someone else extract it for you, as long as you are willing to explain how you managed to be settled with something that could only be constructed through Dark Magic. You may say I tricked you, of course, but it would not stop the wagging tongues from speculating. I am certain it would do wonders for your Ministry career.”

She glared daggers at him but none seemed to touch him. He seemed almost amused.

“I should leave before you plant anything else into my head,” she tossed his way.

“Do not hurry on my account! I was just contemplating planting the idea of you never returning here again.”

# # #

Hermione shoved the few things she had unpacked back into her trunk and levitated it down the stairs. Inside she was still fuming but her the roaring fire of her anger was already simmering down to a few burning embers. Doubt wrangled in the back of her mind. What if he was telling the truth and all he had meant to do was help her because she had asked him to in a moment of exhaustion-induced desperation? She and her friends had practically made a career out of misjudging Snape. Was she still unable to break pattern, despite everything that had happened?

She was wrenched out of her thoughts by the sound of voices at the front door. The house was protected by wands so if anyone had come in, it was because Cagey, the house elf, had allowed them to. One of those voices belonged to Cagey and he sounded uncharacteristically deferential. Oh no! Not them! Not today!

There was nowhere to run. She had arrived at the bottom of the stairs where Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had already entered the white marble statues lined vestibule. The Malfoys were the only visits Severus allowed besides hers. They insisted they came out of the gratitude they owned him for everything he had done for Draco but Hermione knew better.

“Severus,” Lucius called out. “Your wayward wife is climbing out of your house again.”

His smile was a sneer that Hermione tried to match without hoping that she could. Narcissa gave her a disdainful once-over. Hermione became instantly aware that she was still wearing the clothes she had spent sixteen hours sleeping in and that it showed, wrinkles marring every bit of material that she had on. Her ponytail was messy at best, a few strands having fallen out it and were now hanging unevenly around her face. Meanwhile Narcissa and Lucius looked as regal as ever, their resplendent robes looking as though they cost more than her flat. Those two landed on their feet more often than cats did. As a cat owner herself, Hermione could attest to it. Speaking of which, she made a mental note to collect Crookshanks from Ron.

Hermione smiled beatifically at Lucius and Narcissa. There was no way of undoing the damage. All she could do was give as good as she got. “Well, it’s not escaping from Azkaban but then what is?” she said and made a beeline for the door.

_Slytherins_ , she thought spitefully. _If I never see one of them for as long as I live, it will be too soon!_

TBC


	5. A String of Grave Robberies

The hood was pulled low over his face, shielding it from sight, as his black cape billowed around him. His clothing gave every witch and wizard he passed on his way into Gringotts pause, for it was too reminiscent of the attire of Death Eaters. Severus didn’t care. Besides, they were to pause even more if they recognized him and he could also do without the attention. For the umpteenth time that day he cursed Minerva. She didn’t want him back at Hogwarts any more than he wished to return. They had never been friends. She hadn’t liked him as a student, had also taken the side of the Marauders against him, for they were in her House while he was a Slytherin, and she had liked him even less as an adult and a professor. But she felt obligated to him. She needed the clear conscience of having done everything in her power to reward him for everything he had done for their side and he was damned if he would oblige her.

He had no qualms about giving her and Hogwarts a chunk of the Prince family money. It wasn’t his. It was legally but it didn’t feel like his. His mother’s family had never wanted anything to do with him and he didn’t want anything from them. Besides, the ghosts and paintings of that awful manor had had kittens when they realized where some of their money would go and he enjoyed their outrage.

He pulled out the key with Prince family crest and handed it to the expecting goblin. Panic flashed briefly in the creature’s eyes as he tried to stand on tiptoes to peek beneath Snape’s hood. Severus felt himself grow irritated but held his tongue. The faster he was done here, the sooner he could leave. The goblin snatched the key and went to do as Severus had requested in a low voice.

He stood to the side waiting for the bank employee to move the sum he had named from the large vault of the Prince family to that of Hogwarts. On the corner of a desk that looked to be belonging to a human instead of a goblin, he caught sight of two newspapers. One was the Prophet whose front page announced that Gringotts was demanding repayments from the Golden Trio over the damages done to the bank during their heist in the last days of the war. The Prophet that the week before had racked Hermione over the coals for her liaison with that French Ministry of Magic functionary, was now in uproar over the Goblins’ lack of gratitude towards the heroes of the fight against Voldemort.

_Plus ça change,_ he thought uncharitably _. Plus ça reste le même._

He had taught himself a measure of French in order to read some of the less orthodox grimoires coming from France. Not that he felt any kind of sympathy for Potter and his friends. The Goblins seemed determined to take them to court. Nobody cheated a Goblin out of his or her money. But then Sirius Black had left Potter everything. He could afford to pay, Weasley not so much, and Severus himself had no inclination to foot the bill for his wife. It wasn’t because he held a grudge over her unfounded accusation. It had been par the course for her and her ilk so he hadn’t been surprised. No, it was because after she had left the previous weekend, she had instigated one of the most galling conversation s he had ever had with the Malfoys.

Normally the Malfoys, with or without Draco, were less of an imposition on him than most. Their cynical view of the new and improved, post Voldemort world mostly matched his and their refined habits and education made then a not quite so annoying company. Not this time, however. Lucius had made a slew of implications about how Hermione’s physical attractiveness and youth had to make up at least in part for her many shortcomings. Meanwhile Narcissa had quipped about the girl’s atrocious fashion sense and her inability to use a comb. Talk of fashion? Merlin help him, the Malfoys had been very lucky that he hadn’t torn off their heads.

However, Lucius’ implications had stuck in his head. Everyone could see through the sham of his marriage to Hermione but it was so like Malfoy to assume Severus was deriving at least one perk from the arrangement. No, he reminded himself, he was a monster but not that kind of monster. Some darker side of him insisted that yes, he was very much that kind of monster. He had toyed with Hermione in his potions lab like a cat would with a hapless mouse trapped between its paws. Hermione’s fears were truly without merit. If he wanted to play with her mind, he wouldn’t need a speck of Legilimency.

Lucius was wrong, though. It took much more than a pretty face and youth to tempt him. Unfortunately, there were other things about Hermione that tempted him enough. He was long overdue for some vengeance against the bane of his life, the Gryffindors, and taking down the Gryffindor princess and dragging her down to his level would pay them back in spades. Besides, he wanted a more personal kind of revenge against the Golden Trio for the public humiliation they had subjected him to at his trial. Women who looked like Hermione had turned their nose down at him all his life. It would be petty but immensely satisfying to turn the tables on at least one of them.

He shook his head, shame overriding his darker impulses. No, Hermione used to be his student. He had never behaved inappropriately with his students. He would not start now. That treacherous inner voice whispered that she was no longer his student. He frowned and hoping to distract himself, he glanced at the Muggle newspaper on the corner of the desk by which he was currently waiting.

STRING OF GRAVE ROBBERIES ESCALATES TO GRISLY MURDER. THREE TEENAGERS FOUND MUTILATED IN A NORTH LONDON CEMETERY

The title gave him pause, all his prior ruminations about Hermione forgotten. Every instinct he had screamed in warning. Below the headline there were the pictures of three dumbly grinning teenage boys. He quickly scanned the article, committing the details to memory, as he saw the goblin finally return with his key.

No longer focused on preserving his anonymity, he grabbed the key and took flight, whirling out of the bank.

# # #

The house at Spinner’s End was unchanged, not that Severus had expected anything else. Moving through the place , he felt an unexpected measure of if not comfort, then familiarity. Some of the worst memories of his life had been made in this house, still, for better or for worse, this m uggle dunghill, as Bellatrix Lestrange had called it, was the only home he had ever known. What did the spoiled, rich Lestrange lady knew of any of any of that? Of him. He went straight to his childhood bedroom, that had remained more or less the same through the years. It had never occurred to him to occupy his parents’ former room.

His knowledge of the m uggle world, where he had grown up and spent most of his summers ever since his first journey on the Hogwarts Express, had served him well as a spy, especially since it gave him an advantage over both Voldemort, who refused to know anything having to do with Muggles, and the other Death Eaters, who, as generally Pure-Bloods, were largely ignorant about anything not related to magic. Flitting in and out of the two worlds had greatly aided him with mobility and permitted him to develop more than one alibi. It had provided him with convenient escape routes and safe places to hide and plot.

He changed from his robes and cape into a set of Muggle clothes: black jeans and turtle-neck. He tied his hair at the base of skull. Then he ventured outside. There was plenty of information in the Muggle world, if one only knew where to look. Despite what many witches and wizards believed, it was useful too. It took him the rest of the day but he put together a fairly full picture. The grave robberies started shortly before the fall of Voldemort. The graves had been turned upside down and on the ir walls there were deep gashes resembling claw marks, while the bodies had gone missing. They spread throughout most England and parts of Wales and Scotland too but until North London, there had no murder s . Since the apparent grave robberies had taken place at night when cemeteries didn’t exactly brim with the living, the m uggle police had no leads.

The three teenagers who had been murdered had thought it would be fun to slip out of their home s at night and get drunk in the nearest graveyard. The bodies had been found by the caretaker in the morning. Severus had sneaked into the morgue to take a look at the bodies, which he found unrecognisable as human, reduced to masses of bloody, shredded flesh and bone. He knew in an instant what had done that.

He took the train back to Cokeworth. He needed to think. A few pieces of the puzzle had already emerged but he was missing the whole picture. Sitting on the train, he used a Muggle red marker to draw a line between the sights of the grave robberies on a road map of Great Britain. A rune appeared, though, it wasn’t one of the common ones. However, he was certain he had seen it somewhere before. He took a sip of the cup of coffee he had bought at the station. He had infused it with a few drops of a potion against tension head-aches and a splash of a concoction that staved off exhaustion. Both were his own recipe.

It struck him all of the sudden. Why was he doing this? It wasn’t his responsibility any more than it was his fault if nobody at the Ministry of Magic could keep a half attentive eye on the muggle world. His two masters, Dumbledore and Voldemort, were both gone. He was free, he was off the hamster wheel. The war was over, he had a place to hide and a fortune, unwanted as it was, and measure of peace, if only external. That silly girl, Granger, was at least right about that. Perhaps it was because his life was decidedly lacking in challenges at the moment. That was why he was considering messing with Hermione Grange, after all.

Lily’s son was safe, building his own life as an adult. The list of things to do in his lost love’s memory had rapidly dwindled. He could brew and write about potions and study the Dark Arts he had always been so fond of, write, even if nobody would publish him, but it all seemed so fruitless, so empty. He could go back to Hogwarts. Minerva would not like it, despite all her protestations to the contrary, but she would be duty bound to accept him. He hated that place, though, and all the awful, awful memories it evoked. Being a Hogwarts professor had been a cover for him. Nothing more. He disliked teaching and was even more awkward around children than he was around adults. With his missions finished it was mostly just him and his nightmares. He was adrift and restless. He filled his days with experimentations with potions and research but it was all so empty, so devoid of purpose . None of that, however, explained what he was doing right now.

A young family came to sit across from him. The woman was a ginger, though her hair was not as bright and fiery as Lily’s. He winced seeing that they had two small children with them. He did not relish the noise and agitation they would soon produce . He considered going out to the train door and after making certain nobody watched, fly off. The older child, a girl of no more than five, smiled at him all of the sudden. Her two front teeth were missing. He pictured what the Inferi would do to her, to her her younger brother currently fussing in his mother’s arms, to her parents. He became angry in an instant. These idiots had no idea just how defenceless they were. He cursed them, cursed himself, Dumbledore, and the whole wide world. His grip tightened on the map in his hand so much so that he felt it in his knuckles. His stomach was in knots, the scar on his neck aching.

Lifting the map in front of his face as a cover, he peek ed out of the corner of one eye at the little girl but she was no longer paying him any heed instead pulling at the doll her father had thrust into her tiny hands.

# # #

Luna’s laughter was crystalline in Hermione’s ears. They were on a girls’ night out together with Ginny, Parvati and Padma, Hannah, Katie and Fleur. The m uggle pubs had been Hermione’s idea for they afforded them the anonymity to be themselves and have fun. This bar wasn’t much, smoke filled and a bit rundown looking but the live playing jazz band made it worthwhile and the girls mostly agreed.

Hermione downed her first shot of the evening and when she lifted her gaze, she thought she saw….

“Mum,” she called out, jumped off her bar stool and ran after the woman. She turned and Hermione noted she was half her mother’s age. Her heart sank. “I’m so sorry to have bothered you,” she whispered. “I thought you were somebody else.”

The stranger shrugged. “You should lay off the tripple, honey,” she said and continued on her way.

Hermione felt a firm hand squeezing her shoulder. She turned and met Angelina’s soft, sympathetic eyes. It had been a year and a half and despite Hermione’s best efforts and help from the Ministry, she was still no closer to locating her parents. Searching for non-magical beings in the muggle world with the means they had was worse than looking for the needle in the proverbial haystack.

Luna came to join them. “Don’t worry, Hermione,” she said in that comforting lilt of hers. “We will find your parents.”

Not trusting that she could speak past the lump in her throat, Hermione only nodded. With that, their outing was over.

Hermione was still feeling guilty for ruining a good time when she reached the door to her flat. Easing her way past her protective wands, she went in and cast a wordless Lumous spell. She was suddenly weary, keenly aware of her recent sleepless nights, and weighed down by thoughts of her parents. All she wanted was a shower—she still stank of smoke and stale liquor from the pub—and then hopefully a few hours of fitful sleep before she would be up and pacing, her mind a whirlwind she most often didn’t have a prayer of stopping.

She almost jumped out of her skin when she saw Severus Snape sitting in the chair next to her coffee table looking tremendously bored and righteously indignant as if she was the one trespassing instead of him. But then he was her husband by law and what was hers was his also. His large, hooked nose rose a few inches in a move that was gone in a blink of an eye. Hermione realized he could in all likelihood sense the scents of the pub on her and bit her tongue before she could blurt out she had been out with the girls and nobody else.

“ How do you hope to resist my attempts to break into your mind when you fail to properly shield even your flat to my entrance?”

The brunt of that familiar, disdainful gaze was hard to bear, harder than it had been even in school, it seemed. She was reminded of the way Narcissa Malf o y had looked at her. She wasn’t the bar hopping type and so she hadn’t dressed to impress. All she had wanted was to catch up with the girls and maybe have a laugh or two. She had put on a simple white shirt and a tan jacket over her customary jeans. He looked the same, which only served to make him seem ageless. Greasy strings of black hair framed his sharp, angular features like a parted curtain would a narrow window. He was wearing his usual garb of dark, flowing robes. Yet he filled the flat with his presence, exuding the barely contained power of a hurricane trapped in a bottle. He was out of place here . He belonged in ancient, enchanted castles like Hogwarts , haunted manors on hills and Gothic tales. Her place, heavily influenced by her Muggle background as it was, was too mundane for him.

She lifted her gaze from her striped flats with some difficulty. The last weekend bore down on her for an entirely different reason than Narcissa Malfoy’s contempt. “About that,” she began uncertainly, still arrested by the door, as if she was the guest and he was the host, not the other way around. “I just want to say… I was out of line…. I overreacted and made a baseless accusation. I should’ve realized what you were about to do was linked with Dark Magic when you mentioned Voldemort. Occlumency is not strictly speaking illegal but many of us consider it taboo…. Anyway, what I mean to say is I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lashed at you the way it did and…..”

“Do you lack the ability to stop speaking once you open your mouth?” he asked in the exact same tone he used to call her an insufferable know-it-all.

“No, Sir,” she replied. She had gotten use to no longer calling him Professor Snape but Sir slipped out every now and then and he had yet to correct her on that one. “I just wanted to….”

“Make it clear I have to endure the longest apology known to man before I can elaborate on what compelled me to subject myself to you and your stream of consciousness manner of speaking?”

“No, Sir.” Blimey! Twice in one evening. “I’m sorry… Severus.”

He tapped two fingers on the day’s copy of The Quibbler on her coffee table. Hermione purchased it regularly and read it as a courtesy to Luna. She had to push back another desire to explain herself. She could only imagine just how much the presence of the tabloid in her home had consolidated his impression of her as a silly girl.

“Come, sit,” he invited as if they were back in his office at Hogwarts.

Hermione sat down primly. Crookshanks showed up to rub against his feet, no doubt leaving hairs on his impeccable, black robes. Hermione snatched the cat away while muttering another sorry. This one sounded lame to her own ears. Then she shut a squirming Crookshanks in her bedroom. She had had the impression that her pet had been attempting to escape her grip and fling himself back at Snape’s feet. Traitor, she thought.

When she returned and sat back down, she was met with Snape’s long suffering expression. She tried to smile at him but it only made his brows draw perilously close to a frown. “I’m all ears,” she offered. Blimey! She still sounded like an overly solicitous student around him.

“How much do you remember of your Muggle Studies class? More precisely, about the history of the final days of what Muggles call World War II?”

She blinked. Of all the things she had thought he would say, these questions wouldn’t have even made the top 100.

“Do you mean Hitler’s fall?” she asked, more confused about why he would be inquiring about that than about the subject matter. She would have never guessed he knew so much about Muggle history.

“Yes,” he snapped, sounding impatient. “Towards the end of the war, Adolf Hitler had grown exceedingly paranoid and obsessed with finding a miracle weapon that would wrench victory from the jaws of defeat. The Dark Lord was much the same in the days leading to the Battle of Hogwarts. I believe he must have feared that defeat was imminent. But if he was looking for a kind of allpowerful new weapon, he would not have told anyone, least of all me, for he had already begun to doubt my loyalties.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you telling me all this?”

A muggle newspaper appeared out of nowhere and floated towards her. The headline was bleak, announcing the horrific death of three teenage boys. A road map of the United Kingdom made its way into her lap next.

“There have been a string of unusual grave robberies starting shortly before Voldemort’s defeat and spanning all the way to this week’s triple murder in London. It is my belief that these incidents are, in fact, awakenings of Inferi.”

Hermione stared at the red-drawn rune on the map of her home country. “Together they form this rune, don’t they? What does it mean? I’ve never seen a rune like this before.”

“Of course, you haven’t because this is not a rune,” he said, using again that tone he favoured with the slowest of the students.

“Then what is it?” she wanted to know, ignoring the veiled insult in his voice. Her stomach was churning. She had a bad feeling about this.

“A broken ourobous. A gateway to another world.”

She chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. “You think Voldemort opened a gateway to another world before the end of the war. It’s been like that ever since, hasn’t it?”

“No,” he said firmly. “Same recognizes same. If the Dark Lord opened a passage to something he could not have complete control over then he, of all wizards, would have been able to slam that door back shut. I suspect, however, that something or somebody managed to slither through while the gateway was still wide apart.”

Hermione’s blood went cold. “That somebody or something has been here with us ever since,” she realized.

“No, not here with us. There, in the muggle world, with them.”

TBC


	6. The Prince at Spinner's End

_A year earlier_

After having passed out at his trial, Severus woke up to see his wand floating next to his bed and no guards in sight. He sat up gingerly as the flurry of voices just outside his door travelled all the way to him. He recognized the high-pitched voice of his mediwitch.

“Dragging a man who can barely stand to judgement is barbaric, you ask me,” she argued. “I thought we were supposed to be on the side of good and light.”

“Believe me,” Minerva Mcgonagall interjected. “This is not my idea of justice, either. We have protested the Wizengamot’s decision repeatedly.”

“You haven’t protested enough. Or sufficiently loud.”

“We have been loud,” Potter defended. “We just haven’t been heard. Please, may we see him? Only for a minute? To know he is all right?”

“My patients always receive the best of care,” the mediwitch snapped.

“We don’t dispute that, Madam,” Granger said. “We are only concerned after the way he fainted at the trial.”

“What do you expect? He may be on the mend but he still has a long way to go until he is fully restored.”

“We just thought he might benefit from seeing a friendly face. I baked him a basket of muffins.”

Was that Molly Weasley’s voice? Severus slipped out of his bed quietly. His robes were folded on the chair by his bed. He began to dress in a hurry.

Molly Weasley yelped. “Keep your hands to yourself, George. Those are not for you.”

“It’s not like old greasy… Awww, Mum… honestly...,” Ronald Weasley blathered about.

Snape grabbed the mediwitch’s notes sitting atop his bed cabinet and shoved them in his robes.

“I wasn’t the only one who called him that,” Ron Weasley continued on the other side of the door, sounding chastened and more than a little bit ashamed.

“Well, I will not stand to hear words like that or any of the same from anyone in my family ever again,” Arthur Weasley said sternly.

“Sorry, Dad… really…. I’m not even the one who came up with it… Just like the bat…. Aw, Ginny!”

Severus opened the window and taking his wand, he flew away as fast as his still wobbly grasp on magic would allow him.

# # #

He stumbled and nearly fell to his knees before his house in Cokeworth. His stomach was roiling and bile gathered in his throat. He swallowed past it and sought to centre himself. The bitten half of his neck was burning and his vision was blurry. He cast a wordless spell that had no effect. His fingers closed around his wand but it did little to help him. He doubled over and vomited. After he spat the last of the gall, he stumbled towards the house. Around him his old neighbourhood was quiet like a tomb, all the long abandoned houses around him shrouded in a thick, palpable silence, the chimney of the derelict mill towering from afar like a dark omen. His sight wavered, even as the wind wafted the familiar, foul stench of the street to his nostrils, making him nauseous again. A sweet voice called from behind him.

_Severus…._

Lily! He turned around faster than it was wise, given the precarious state of his stomach. But there was nobody there and her warm smile disintegrated against one of the blind windows of the house across the street. He felt the cold sweat on his back and temples. He was about to pass out, he could tell. He needed to get inside and soon. He walked the best he could up to the front door and went in, wishing he had the strength to reinforce his wands. If Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy could find him here, he had a feeling Minerva Mcgonagall and her merry band of Gryffindors could too.

He fell to his knees just as the door shut behind him. He heard her voice again and guessed that he was probably feverish but he didn’t mind. No fever of his had ever been this kind to him before. Dust tumbled upwards as he landed face-first on the well-worn carpet in the hallway and the smell of staleness suffused his senses, though it was soon replaced by another scent that, albeit not more pleasant, was more welcome. Instead of the scratchy, uneven surface of the rug, he could feel the softness of the grass beneath his palms. Lily turned her lovely face towards him and smiled. He had never witnessed anything more beautiful, more perfect. He remembered that day and he remembered knowing in the instant that he would love her for as long as he lived.

# # #

He awoke to darkness and dragged himself off the carpet. His muscles screamed in protest and the bite sight on his neck still ached terribly. He checked his forehead and found that his fever seemed to have gone down somewhat. He moved around in the dark without the benefit of the wandlight. He didn’t need it to find his way in this house. In fact, he preferred it this way. In the bathroom and in the makeshift potions lab he had put together, he had a vast collection of pain healing concoctions and muggle medicine. He had made use of his stock more than once as a spy. It had paid to have a safe house like this that both magic folk and Muggles found disgusting.

He did cast _Lumos_ once inside the bathroom in order to give a cursory look at the treatment he had been administered. His mediwitch and Healer Smethwyck seemed to have done an admirable job. He had been fed copious amounts of Essence of Dittany on the word of one Hermione Granger. Severus cringed. The last thing he wanted was that silly girl thinking he was in her debt. The biggest problem during his coma had been staunching his blood loss. Apparently, Nagini’s venom had the nasty side-effect of keeping the wounds the snake had caused opened. Finally, after a long, grueling struggle, they had found out a way to close up the bite.

Lowering the collar of his robe, he carefully pried off the bandage still covering one side of his neck. The wound looked horrific, as the raised, puckered edges were red and swollen, and there were still signs of necrotic tissues around them. He could only imagine the disfiguring nature of the scar they would create. He shrugged and immediately regretted it when fresh pain shot through him. What was one more scar? He took a mix of healing potions, the recipes of which he had devised himself, and some Oxycodone. He stopped just short of swallowing the two pale pills dry, wondering why he was bothering.

He had done what he had promised in memory of Lily. He had almost died for her son. He had committed the unspeakable acts others couldn’t and advanced the cause against Voldemort to its victory. The war was over. He was done. Wizard or not, he still knew that if he took the entire bottle of Oxycodone, he would not wake up again. He had had a moment of brute, animal panic when the warm blood gushing from the snake bite wound had run over his fingers but that was hardly surprising. It had been pure instinct, not the choice of his conscious mind.

He had entertained similar thoughts before, after the first war, but Dumbledore had convinced him that there were still things he could do for his lost love. Well, Dumbledore was dead now. Severus had killed him. Pain that had nothing to do with the snake bite flared within him. In a sick way, Dumbledore, who had used him ruthlessly for the good of the cause, thinking nothing of tarnishing Severus’ soul beyond repair when it suited him, had been the only friend he had had aside from Lily. Dumbledore had known him in a way nobody had, not even Lily, and Severus had found momentary comfort in that, even if what his old professor had seen had disgusted him at time. Now Dumbledore was gone too. Severus was alone in the house where his parents had died, the house of his childhood misery, with his pain and regrets. He could end it all right now. The answer lay at the bottom of a bottle of muggle painkillers.

A treacherous voice inside his head reminded him that his mother had done the same. One night, towards the end of his sixth year at Hogwarts, his quiet, sad-faced mother who had never once defended herself against his father’s harsh words and harsher blows, had suffocated him with a pillow. Then she had gone into the bathroom filled the tub with water, slid in and slashed her wrists open with his father’s razor. The neighbours—back then they used to have neighbours—had found the bodies two days later.

Severus took only two pills and put the rest of the Oxycodone away. Then he replaced the bandage on his neck and filled the rickety tub with water. He disrobed and went in, the bathtub creaking plaintively under his weight. Not fitting in properly, he was forced to gather his knees under his chin. Bones were sticking out from under his paper white skin marred with scars and veins that were of a too vivid blue. He remembered his mother placing him in the tub in a similar fashion once when he had been five or six and he had had a fever much like now. Her cool, slim-fingered hand had pressed onto his heated forehead while she had been humming something under her breath to calm him, a shaky attempt at a reassuring smile gracing her thin, pale lips.

He thought back to her staring after him as he had disappeared onto Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. He recalled her thin, hunched-over frame clad in a washed-up green dress that hung onto her a bit too loosely, and her eyes following him with a vacant expression from her sallow, grim face. Regret twinged within him. If he hadn’t left, flying onto the wings of dreams of magic, if he had stayed, could he have saved her?

He moved like a ghost through his own house. After washing up, he had dressed in a fresh set of black robes and went hunting for food. He had had Pettigrew regularly restock the pantry back when Voldemort had gifted his former childhood tormentor to him. It had been supremely satisfying to have that squirming, slimy worm at his beck and call, even if only for a while, but now it all seemed empty somehow. He opened a can of bully beef and found some biscuits that were past their expiration date but still smelled fine and ate by the light of his wand, while cataloguing the state of his Occlumency walls in his head. His near brush with death had rattled them and he was due for some rebuilding. The purposelessness of it did nag at him, though. What was the point? There was no Dark Lord to read his mind any more and he was certain that no witch or wizard alive was a skilled enough Legilimens to get inside his head.

# # #

He had been at Spinner’s End for a few weeks when he heard a knock followed by an ominous scratch at his door. He was sitting in his armchair amid his books reading a miserable little muggle novel about death, disease and despair. He recognized that he was indulging in uncharacteristic self-pity but there was no Dumbledore to scold him about it now. Besides, he had no appetite for magic-related writings or even for the covert research he had been conducting during the summers of the years he had spent teaching at Hogwarts. At least, one good thing had come out of the war. Last he had heard it, that place, that had been the bane of his existence in so many ways, now lay in ruins. It wouldn’t last but he was going to enjoy for as long as it did.

At first, he chose to ignore the noise at his front door but after a while the scratching became unbearable. Placing his book on the arm of his chair, he went to investigate only to discover the oldest looking elf he had ever seen on his doorstep. The elf bowed all the way to the ground. Severus winced. He had a bad feeling about this.

“Master…,” the elf said in a sibilant tone.

“I am nobody’s master,” Severus replied and got ready to slam the door in the creature’s safe.

“Cagey begs your pardon. Cagey know you are not his Master… yet.”

It was the most fluent Severus had ever heard an elf being but when one lived to be as old as this one appeared to be, he guessed one had time to learn a more or less correct English.

The elf extended Severus a rolled-up parchment closed with a crimson wax seal. He recognized the crest immediately: a blooming rose with a dragon wrapped around its stem and the words _Condemnant quo non intellegunt_ in Gothic calligraphy curling protectively around them.

“Your cousin is dead, Master,” the elf hastened to say. “He perished in the war.”

“Impaled by his own stupidity, no doubt,” Severus muttered and turned on a heel leaving the door opened behind him so the elf could come in.

As a child, he had been enthralled by his mother’s stories of the magical world from which she had come, of her tales of growing up in a mansion with fantastic creatures for servants and spending summers in a real castle in Italy. At Hogwarts he had read everything he could find on the Prince family history. For a while he had even entertained childish notions of being discovered by his mother’s positively regal family, of being revealed to be an actual prince and of inviting Lily to be his princess. His foolish dreams had come to an end when he had tried writing his uncle, his mother’s younger brother, only to be summarily rebuffed. Still he had continued to try and call himself the Half-Blood Prince. Over the years he had heard things about the Prince family, such as news of his uncle and aunt’s passing and about what fool his cousin had made of himself while studying at Durmstrang. Unsurprisingly, his cousin had sided with Voldemort but he had never made it all the way to Death Eater. The Dark Lord valued blood purity above all else but he was not stupid. He would have never allowed an idiot like his cousin had been rumoured to be into his inner circle.

“You are the only Prince left,” the elf said craning his neck to get better look at Severus’ sitting room. A kind of disapproval that verged on horror was etched onto its wrinkled, discoloured features.

Severus tossed the scroll back to the elf. “My name is Severus Snape. I am not a Prince.” He took no pride in being Tobias Snape’s son but he didn’t want the name and inheritance that had fallen onto his lap by happen-stance, either. It could be of no use to him now. On the contrary. Being the sole heir of a revered pure-blood family came with obligations he had no intention of fulfilling.

“But there is nobody else…,” Cagey protested, looking distraught.

Severus drew closer to the elf, deliberately towering over him. “Hasn’t my cousin warned you against contradicting Death Eaters?”

“Master Severus is no longer a Death Eater.”

He snarled, fully aware of the weight of his threatening glare. “Death Eater or not, Master Severus can still cast unforgivable curses on elves that overstay their welcome.”

The elf grabbed the sides of his head which he shook with a small wail. “What is poor Cagey to do? He has served his Masters and Mistresses for so long, even Mistress Eileen… yes, Cagey remembers her. Master Severus looks like her.”

Fury raised within Severus when the elf mentioned his mother. What did the being know of his mother? The family Cagey had served had cast her out for the crime of marrying a Muggle. Where had the mighty Prince family been when she was wasting away living in this house that their elf servant visibly despised? Where had they been when Tobias Snape had hit her? He raised his wand and casting a wordless spell, he flung the intruder out of his house.

# # #

_Now_

Kingsley Shacklebolt raised his eyes from the stack of muggle newspapers, the marked roadmap of UK and the parchment covered in Snape’s neat handwriting. Hermione could see that he was doubtful.

“This is compelling reasoning, Hermione, but then I expect no less from Severus Snape. However, it is mostly conjecture and indirect evidence.”

Hermione leaned over the Minister’s desk, her palms resting close to the broken ouroboros. “There are billions of people buried in the muggle world. Imagine the size of the Inferi army they could form. Inferi are impervious to magic. If we do not do something to nip this in the bud, both we and the Muggles would be easy prey. What could we do against such an army? Scorch the entire planet?”

Shacklebolt’s elbows were on the desk too and he placed his chin atop his steepled hands. “I know it all sounds ominous but don’t you find it at least a bit curious nobody besides Snape has noticed any of this before? He knows your parents are still lost in the muggle world. Why do you think he came to you with all this instead of going directly to the Ministry? He’s manipulating you, Hermione.”

She drew back, suddenly angry. “I remember a time when the Ministry was similarly warned about imminent danger but the Minister chose to stuff his fingers deep in his ears and hum loudly. I remember what your thoughts on the matter had been then, too.”

He looked at her warmly. “This is not the same, Hermione, and you know it. Back then I had Dumbledore’s and your friend’s word that Voldemort had returned. Besides, everyone with a modicum of sense had already understood that the return of the Dark Lord was only a matter of time.” He stood up and rounded his desk to get closer to her. His hands came to rest on her upper arms. “Listen to me, Hermione! Severus Snape has been away from any seat of power for quite some time and his taking on the Prince family heritage obviously hasn’t brought him quite the advantage he had been hoping for. Now he’s looking for a way back in. He’s using you.”

“No, you listen to me. If Severus Snape wanted power, he wouldn’t need me to get it. With both Dumbledore and Voldemort gone, can you think of a more powerful wizard in the entire world?”

He sighed and retreated to his seat. “I’m not blind to what our cause owes him,” he said quietly. “But that doesn’t make him a good man… or even someone we can trust.”

“Harry says he is one of the bravest men he has ever known.”

Kingsley seemed to consider her carefully. “Bravery doesn’t equate good intentions. And he is a Slytherin.”

It was Hermione’s time to sigh. “School is over, Minister. Can we be done with all this House silliness now that we are all grown-ups living in the real world?”

His small smile was fond. “You sound almost like Snape.”

Hermione scoffed. “He can be a bit of an insufferable know-it-all, too. Kingsley, he’s not lying about this. He seemed almost resentful that he had to deal with it.”

“Fine. On your word.” He paused to point a finger at her. “And on your word alone I will send a few Aurors to investigate.”

“That’s all I ask.” It wasn’t but working at the Ministry she was fast learning to compromise. It was one learning experience she could have done without. Her job might be rewarding every now and then but the disappointing aspects of it far outweighed the good she could do. There was endless red tape and petty intrigue and corroding office gossip and politics. So much politics! Wizarding politics, muggle politics and everything in between.

TBC

_Condemnant quo non intellegunt_ (Latin) = They condemn that which they do not understand.


	7. Garden of Lilies

_Now_

Hermione found Ron outside his family home looking fairly dejected. She waved after apparating and he waved back uncertainly.

“Hello. George said you and Harry are here,” she said in one breath.

Harry had inherited the house at 12 Grimmauld Place from his godfather but he still spent most of his time at the Weasleys.

Ron shrugged. “It’s a mad house in there,” he explained pointing behind him.

Hermione strained to listen and her ears were met with an avalanche of feminine voices coming from inside the house. She picked up on Fleur’s accent and still mostly spotty English and winced. Fleur’s relationship with her in-laws had been steadily improving but there still was the occasional tension.

She angled her head towards Ron to whisper conspiratorially. “How is everyone getting along?”

“Good. I wish they were back to fighting. At least, I knew what to do then but all this talk of tulle and flowers and colour coordination… George is hiding in his shop, the coward. He says he’s busy but I know better.”

That was right! They were getting ready for George’s and Angelina’s wedding.

“It can’t be that bad, Ronald,” Hermione soothed, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“You haven’t seen what they want you to wear.”

“What do they want me to wear?”

“You’ll see soon enough… and all I can say, Hermione, I’m sorry. I tried to get Ginny on my side when I still had hope of talking them out of it but I swear it’s like a kind of shared madness. She just wouldn’t listen to reason!” He shoved his hands in his pockets, his left foot kicking idly at a stone on the ground. “Mum will ask you if… if you’ll be coming alone, that is.”

“The day I manage to drag Severus Snape of all people to a Weasley wedding is the day we all have bigger problems than my bridesmaid dress,” Hermione warned solemnly.

Ron chuckled. “Like the incoming end of the world, the swarms of locusts and me liking your cat?”

His laughter was infectious and Hermione soon found herself giggling as well. Ron sobered up first and took to chewing on his lower lip. Hermione frowned.

“Is something the matter, Ronald? You know, other than the whole wedding catastrophe.”

He blushed a bit. “You always knew what I’m thinking, ‘Mione,” he said in lowered voice. “Did you talk to Parvati?”

“Well, we all talked when we went out together… and that’s not what you meant.”

He nodded, his blush deepening, making his hair seem even redder. He was still not looking her in the eye. “You know, we’ve been keeping in contact since the war. We didn’t mean anything by it at first. Just two old schoolmates going out for tea or lunch. We mostly talked about Lavender. She misses her… and I miss her… She was my first girlfriend and all. I still can’t believe she’s gone and the way she died…. We just talked a lot about that and the war and all the people we lost and the school…. How we all started…. Do you remember? We were just children, so zany and so hopeful. I have no idea how it happened but Parvati and I became close and I would like to ask her to come to George’s wedding with me but if it bothers you….”

“Oh, Ronald,” Hermione said and lunged forward, enveloping him in a tight hug. Her heart was bleeding, for him, for the way they were, for Lavender, for everyone they had lost.

When she drew back, she saw plainly written on his face the exact well of feeling gathering within her. She tried to smile even though tears prickled at her eyes. “You don’t have to ask for my permission to move on. I mean, I’m married!”

He took back to kicking at that stone. “Yeah, but it’s not real. I’d like to see Parvati for real.”

“You don’t need my blessing for that. Just because it didn’t work out between us it doesn’t mean I want you to be alone for the rest of your life. You and Harry are my best friends in the whole world. I want you to be happy and Parvati is a wonderful girl. I wish you all the best.”

He threw a hand around her shoulders. “Thank you, Hermione. You always know what to say. I want you to be happy too. When this insanity with Snape is finished, I’m sure you’ll find a bloke who deserves you and we’ll get your parents too… and we’ll all be happy together. Just so long as you don’t let Mum plan your wedding.”

Hermione returned his hug. She had come there to enlist his and Harry’s help with Snape’s discovery about the threat lurking in the muggle world but now she began to have doubts. Despite herself, Kingsley had gotten to her. She was fully aware that his caution was pure politics. Kingsley was striving to reform the ossified structure of the Ministry but it was proving to be a massive undertaking. Many of the functionaries from Fudge’s time were still in place and the whole system was resisting change. So Kingsley was forced to proceed with maximum care lest he gave the impression that Voldemort’s dictatorship had been replaced by that of the his victors. Besides, he had a point about trusting Snape. The man had fooled Voldemort, for crying out. For years. Who knew what was really going on underneath that mop of greasy black hair?

A rain of acorns fell upon them. Ron and Hermione broke apart and, wands at the ready, turned on their attackers. Harry and Ginny stood no more than a few feet from them grinning like mad, obviously very pleased with themselves. Both Ron and Hermione retaliated at the same time. Harry’s laughter sounded so carefree, his eyes twinkling with mischief. He seemed so different from the war when the literal weight of the world had been on his shoulders. They had been only children, all of them, and they had been forced to take on a powerful Dark Wizard from the tender age of eleven. Ronald was right: they deserved to be happy. They deserved a break. Giving in to old, school time antics, she decided to leave Snape’s discovery to the Aurors. It was high time they did their job. She, the Weasleys and Harry had a wedding to plan.

# # #

Snape had gone to Hermione with his findings for two reasons: she had a vested interest in helping out the muggle world, since her parents were still lost there, and, as a member of the Golden Trio, her word held a great deal of influence with the Ministry. He was well aware that Kingsley Shacklebolt would have never listened to him but things were different where Hermione Granger was concerned. Seeing the two young and visibly inexperienced Aurors bumbling around one of the grave robberies sights, he saw that Shacklebolt had listened to Hermione but had failed to hear her. He cursed the war for the death of Alastor Moody. Mad-Eye had more than earned his name yet his instincts were flawless. He would have understood what they were up against in a minute. Even taken Tonks would have done the trick. He understood that even if Shacklebolt had taken him seriously, the war had left the Aurors depleted. There was a glaring lack of experienced hands that could effectively deal with this.

Fortunately, good things had come out of the war as well, such as the death of his good-for-nothing cousin. The Prince family Florentine castle was in no better shape than their English manor but it still held one of the vastest magic libraries in Europe. Its collection on the Dark Arts was no less impressive. There he had come across texts that were either so obscure or so taboo, even he hadn’t heard of them. He expected that they were largely lost to history. It was an excellent place to start his research into what Voldemort had set loose onto the muggle world.

# # #

Hermione arrived in her flat via Floo powder carrying a side of trifle and a slice of shepherd's pie that Mrs. Weasley had made her take with her. She sympathetic with Ron but she also comprehended his mother. The Weasleys had lost one of their own in the war and Molly wanted them to celebrate and reaffirm life. That was why she was going all out with this wedding in a manner that was too Molly Weasley for Molly Weasley.

Ronald was right about one thing, though. That was the ugliest dress in creation: a cascade of floor-length mint green tulle embellished with hot pink and canary yellow flowers and the puffiest skirt ever thought possible. At least, she had managed to talk Mrs. Weasley out of the matching hat. Her wedding invitation—a firecracker with quidditch motifs—was for two. That would be the day! She had to face Snape at some point and convey to him Kingsley’s response. That was enough of a cause for dread, without throwing a wedding into the mix.

It was funny how, after everything, Severus Snape could still reduce her to that flustered schoolgirl wishing to hide under her desk from her brilliant yet utterly difficult professor’s disapproval. Forget potions, if he could bottle the full magnitude of that dark gaze that was equal parts viciousness, ice cold sarcasm and supreme disdain, then he would really have something. But then, knowing him, maybe he could. At this point, she wouldn’t put anything past him.

Even alone in her flat, she had the impression that his gaze was following her around. She suspected it was at least in part the added effect of his eye colour. She had never seen eyes as black as his. It was like staring down a pair of bottomless tunnels. Hermione had never truly feared him, not even when she had been his student, not like someone like Neville had, but she had to admit that the power of his eyes held something tremendous, at the same time terrifying and awe-inducing. She remembered him bent over a bubbling cauldron, his expression devoid of that perpetual sneer she had come to associate with him. Instead his eyes had held a kind of laser-sharp focus, so constant and incredible, that it seemed as that he was willing potion to turn out right by the sheer force of his stare. She wondered what it would be like to feel that kind of concentration aimed at her. Where had that come from? Severus had been in her thoughts a lot lately. She puzzled over it. Could the accidental link between their minds be the culprit? She needed to investigate.

Seating herself at the centre of her bed, Crookshanks purring by her legs, she closed her eyes and attempted to focus, striving to find the memory that had lulled her to sleep that night. She soon found herself walking in that fantastic field again. She followed the river into woods that were and were not a lot like the Forbidden Forest by Hogwarts. The trees were indeed ancient looking, their thick trunks gleaming like pale candles in the light but their crowns were not as dense as to prevent light from spilling to the ground. She could still see the bright blue sky through the foliage. She stepped onto the plush moss carpet covering the forest floor and went exploring. There were silvery otters playing by the river banks. She heard a nightingale sing somewhere nearby, though the hour was wrong for it, but other than that, there were no living beings in sight. She felt no hint of Snape’s presence.

She concentrated on seeking the spellbinding electric torrent of his mind but the landscape remained soft and mellow with no signs of any dark intensity looming anywhere near. She thought she heard her Mum’s laughter or seen her father smile at her from a nearby pearly leaf. She felt a gentle touch on her forehead and cheeks but still saw nobody. No, she was definitely in her mind. Alone.

The river vanished suddenly before a small meadow. There was a tall, burnished stone wall surrounding the meadow but as she got closer it receded until it reached her knees. The meadow was, in fact, a garden of lilies. The flowers were so beautiful, they were almost painful to look at. Some of their long petals were golden, others were of a white so pure and bright, they glistened like teardrop shaped pearls in the sunlight. There were other colours too: peach and orange, dark purple, faded pink and blood red. He had created the imagery to begin with so this had to be his contribution. She couldn’t believe all this had come from the mind of Severus Snape.

She walked into the garden, careful not to disturb the flowers, breathing into their intoxicating scent. In the middle she found a patch of empty, freshly dug ground. It was obviously starved of water and had already started to crack. A single sprout rose from the dry earth. It was still green, though yellow had begun to tinge its small, brittle leaves. She had no idea what that plant was but somehow she knew it wasn’t a lily. It was their bond, she realized. She searched for his presence in her mind again but came out empty-handed. She knew why young sprout was dying too. His end of the link was truly closed and starved of connection, the bond was languishing.

Loss sliced through her but why? It was what she had wanted. For this bond to die, nervous about having him in her head. She ran to the river and gathered some of the sparkling water into her palms then quickly carried back to the poor, unattended sprout. The lilies no longer seemed quite so sublime to her. She realized that when the sprout died, they would claim its meagre patch of land as well, overwhelming the meadow.

# # #

_A year earlier_

The visit of the Prince family house elf had opened the floodgates. Several days later Severus was risen from napping in the armchair in his sitting room by a persistent knock on his door. He was still weak and since his night sleep was uneasy, he sometimes fell into a restless slumber during the day as well if only for a few tens of minutes. He recognized that firm hand rapping on his front door. It was Minerva Mcgonagall and she would knock until the end of time if he didn’t answer.

He pried himself from the armchair with some difficulty. His muscles were stiff and achy from sleeping in that uncomfortable position. His neck still hurt and he had bouts of feverish chills every now and then. Fortunately he had already ingested some muggle painkillers that day. Unlike the highly precise magic potions, muggle medicine produced some interesting side-effects that could be put to good use when one had to deal with people one absolutely did not want to see.

He opened the door to his worst nightmare: Minerva Mcgonagall stood on the other side with Harry Potter, the entire Weasley clan, a studiously staring at his feet Neville Longbottom, a few other Gryffindors he was determined to pretend that he didn’t remember the name of, and a most uncomfortable looking Horace Slughorn. It served him right for allowing himself to get roped into this. Only Hermione Granger was conspicuously absent.All except Slughorn were carrying packages of various sizes.

“Hello, Severus,” Minerva said. She looked about ready to cry and her gaze was filled with so much compassion that Severus found himself missing the time when his only visitors were Death Eaters.

He stood frozen on the spot for a moment or two, feeling his jaw clench, and enveloping them all in an inhospitable glare.

“Hello, Professor Snape,” Potter said with an unbelievable amount of false cheer. “How are you feeling?” He shot Ginny Weasley a desperately pleading look.

She just shrugged and turned to give Snape a terribly forced smile of her own. “My Mum baked you fresh Chelsea buns. See?” She pushed up the basket Molly Weasley was holding. Was that a Slytherin green bow around it?

Molly Weasley sneaked a look at him and immediately drew her lower lip into her mouth, looking close to tears too. Forget Death Eaters, where were the Dementors when one needed them?

He stepped aside reluctantly in order to allow them all in. They crowded in his sitting room while he busied himself locking the door. He heard a few gasps behind him and he cringed. Shame and anger warred within him. He was well aware what his house looked like, he wasn’t blind or dim-witted. He knew it was in no better shape than all those abandoned homes surrounding it. Old embarrassment washed over him as he remembered all those many times before when he had been mortified by his family’s poverty, his mismatched clothes and his abysmal living conditions. Then fury won over the ignominy. He had known some of these people for years, decades even, and they had never expressed any interest in how and where he lived. What right did they have to judge his place now?

By the time he turned and marched back into the sitting room, he was seething. He knew why they were all here, of course. They felt obligated to. He stood there awkwardly, gaping at the lot of them with his best derisive look, as they filled his rickety table with sweet breads and finger sandwiches and thermoses of tea and hot punch. Only Slughorn walked up to him and patted him on one shoulder.

“You gave us quite a fright, my dear boy, when you disappeared from St. Mungo’s,” his old professor said.

Severus looked down at the hand touching him as if it were poisonous. There had always been a measure of respect between him and Slughorn but never this level of affection. Knowing what was good for him, Slughorn wisely dropped his hand and took a step back. Then it was Minerva’s turn to try and approach him.

“How are you, Severus? Really? Are you sure you wouldn’t be better off recuperating back at St. Mungo’s again? Your mediwitch has been beside herself ever since you left.”

“I am… nauseated,” he answered truthfully, rolling the last word in his mouth well and good in order to coat it in the full brunt of his discontent.

Potter’s head snapped to him so fast it was comical. Lily’s eyes stared at him from James’ all too familiar face. Severus tuned his gaze away. He didn’t expect there would a day when that wouldn’t hurt, the sight searing him like a brand.

“Yes, of course. Come, sit down.” Minerva waved a few people away from around his armchair. “You have been standing for too long. We are terribly sorry to put you out like this. Why don’t I come around some other day so we can talk quietly?”

He remained standing by the fireplace. “Minerva, how long have we known each other?” he asked icily.

She seemed taken aback and he relished it. “Severus, you know as well as I do that I have known you since you first came to Hogwarts at the age of eleven.”

“And in all this time when did we have a single conversation that was not school related?”

Her face fell. Her lips moved without a sound for an instant before she cleared her throat audibly. “We are all survivors of the same war, Severus,” she said kindly. “We all fought on the same side. There is no need for you to….”

“To what?” he barked. “To be myself. We have never been friends, Minerva, and you do not wish to talk to me now any more than I wish to see you.” He extended his gaze to the whole room. “Any of you, for that matter.” He heard his own voice mount, as his temper dissipated. Pain lurked in his blood, while cold sweat bloomed on his nape. He needed to get them out while he could still stand. “What do you imagine this would accomplish? Do you think it would erase all those years you whispered behind my back when you thought I couldn’t hear you? Or all those things you threw in my face? Or do you believe perhaps that it would take away everything you did or… did not do?” Minerva had the decency to lower her gaze, appearing to be ashamed. She knew all too well what he was hinting at. She had been as much of a passive spectator to what James Potter and his cohorts had put him through as anyone else in the school. “Or do you imagine perhaps that this entire absurd charade would wipe off what I did? That it could wash Dumbledore’s blood off my hands? That it could remove the sting of the heinous deeds he asked me to commit so that all of you, sanctimonious hypocrites, could keep your precious consciences clean?”

A frozen silence fell over the room like a heavy blanket. Everybody except for Slughorn did their best not to look at him. Potter himself was staring resolutely at the far wall. He had to give his old Potions Master at least this: the man didn’t shy away from the awkwardness of the situation

“I’m sorry, Professor,” Potter said all of the sudden. He turned and stood up, something in his expression reminding Snape of the young man’s confronting him about Dumbledore’s murder. “I am sorry for all the things I said about you, for all the things I thought too, even those you deserved. I am sorry for always assuming the worst of you. I am sorry I always failed to see that you were always only protecting me… protecting us. And I am sorry for what my father, my godfather, Wormtail and Professor Lupin did to you. I am sorry neither of them was man enough to apologize and make amends for their abominable behaviour. I am sorry I called you pathetic once but most of all, I am sorry I called you a coward when you are the bravest men I have ever met. You weren’t too good to us but then nobody has ever been too good to you, either. Despite what you told Dumbledore, I believe that you did grow to care for me… for us all. I believe you care a lot more than you would let even yourself admit. Now… we won’t impose on you any longer. You clearly need to rest.” He tugged on Ginny Weasley’s hand. “Come on, Ginny!”

She ambled after him grabbing her mother’s arm as she did and dragging her towards the door as well.

Severus couldn’t remember the last time he had been at a lost for words. He grappled for a sarcastic comment, anything snide but the nothing would come. He felt like crying and couldn’t even summon the stamina to be furious at Potter for reducing him to this.

“Harry,” he called out, surprising everyone, including himself. “You have more than your mother’s eyes. You have her kindness too.”

The boy smiled softly at him and nodded without another word. Quietly they all filled out except for that odd Ravenclaw girl, Luna Lovegood. She ran to him and threw her arms around his waist, briefly resting her pale golden head against his chest.

“We forgive you for Dumbledore, Professor. You will understand that when your head is less filled with wrackspurts.”

He huffed. “There are no wrackspurts in my head,” he replied indignantly, refusing to return the impromptu hug. The only fuzziness and confusion he had experienced of late had come from the muggle medication he had been taking.

Longbottom pulled her off Severus. “Come on, Luna, the professor doesn’t need to hear about wrackspurts.”

“Of course not. We already knows about them,” she said and waved at him on her way out.

He did but he didn’t think any of them would be comfortable to learn just how he had found out.

TBC


	8. In The Beginning

_A year earlier_

The visit and Potter’s words had left Severus shaken to the core. He stared at the delicacies cluttering his table, threatening its already wobbly balance, and felt his stomach roil. He had been living off the cans left behind from when Wormtail had been doing his shopping but the truth was he didn’t have the appetite for anything. The little food he had forced down his throat had been for the benefit of the potent combination of potions and muggle medicine he had been ingesting.

If he focused enough, he could still hear Potter’s endless string of apologies ringing in his ears. They had dug deep into the complicated feelings he had for the boy. It was hard to endure the sight of his greatest childhood tormentor. And to see Lily’s eyes look back at him from that face. He still hated James Potter with a white-hot fury. He couldn’t bring himself to regret his death and felt guilty for being gleeful about a boy losing his father. Seeing Potter on a regular basis for seven years, while also being responsible for his life and safety, had been its own kind of torture. It had left deep, unhealed wounds next to the still infected ones of his entanglements with the Marauders. Then there was the guilt. He was to blame for Lily’s death. In his clearest hours, he even felt guilty for the way he had treated her son at school. How many times had he resolved to do better by the boy only to stroll into classroom, see James’ face and be overcome with the old mix of impotent wrath, despair and humiliation?

That wasn’t even the worst of it. That came every now and then when a poisonous voice whispered in his ear that Harry could have been his son. But he wasn’t. Harry was _James’_ son.

… _you are the bravest man I have ever met…_

Severus cringed. A flash of Dumbledore falling passed before his eyes followed by other faces. It would have been easy if Harry Potter had continued to hate him. Severus was used to that. He knew what to do with it but this… this… he had no idea how he was supposed to react to this. And he knew exactly why. Because the scrawny, poor boy with old, mismatched clothes and unfortunate looks who suffered from crippling awkwardness around others, whom his father and his classmates beat, whom nobody liked, because he was odd and different, who had nothing but his sad, absent mother, his friendship with Lily and magic, the boy who had grown up in this living tomb of a house had wanted all this more than anything in the world. Friends, acceptance, recognition, the possibility of a child of his own, to have people around him who cared whether he lived and died. He had wanted all that more than he had wanted the blows to stop, more than he had wanted decent clothing and plentiful food. And now it was being dangled in front of him and it wasn’t real. It was a torture worse than the Cruciatus curse.

They hadn’t come because they were his friends and truly cared. They had come out of obligation. With the exception of maybe Potter and that was the worst of it. He had never been good with people. He had always been skittish and off-putting. His only friend had been Lily and he had ruined all that with a single word. When he had been a student himself, he had been desperate for Minerva, a teacher he had always greatly respected, to see him but even back then he had known he wasn’t her kind of pupil. Besides, he was Slytherin and Minerva had been compelled to side with the Marauders against him. When they had become colleagues, he hadn’t known how to approach her any more than he had been sure about how to relate to the sudden and dizzying power reversal of having his until recently teachers become his colleagues. He had never planned for his life to take him back to Hogwarts. So he had hid behind a carefully constructed facade just like he hid the truth about himself behind the Occlumency walls in his head. Right now, however, both construction rattles and threatened to crumble.

He raised his wand and pulverized to smithereens everything his visitors had brought him. Minerva’s teary eyes floated in the back of his head. They had been so full of remorse and compassion, even affection. He hadn’t even realised he had wanted her to be his friend. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe in this house. He changed into a set of muggle clothes and flew to London. He refused to get drunk in Cokeworth.

# # #

The pub was one he knew from his days as a spy. It was a little, seedy place with dubious smells, dubious looking vinyl chair and cracked tabletops. The patrons were just as reputable. It had served him well, not only as a hide-out during his triple agent work, for it had room to rent above the bar, but also when conducting operations for the Order. Nobody would be searching for him there. No self-respecting Death Eater would be caught dead in an establishment like this. Unfortunately, the prim and proper members of the Order also saw themselves above such places. So, as always, the unsavoury tasks fell to him.

He got a bottle of whiskey and a glass, seeing no use in sugar coating the reason he was there. The bartender was careful not to meet his eyes. In a pair of plain, black trousers and matching shirt and jacket, he didn’t stick out at all but this was a place where the police was liable to show up flashing photos and nobody wanted to have to identify anybody.

He picked a far away, corner table with a view of the door out of habit. He poured a few fingers of whiskey and took a cautious gulp. Normally he steered clear of any kind of intoxicants. Those loosened tongues, the one thing a triple agent could absolutely not afford.

During the first war, things had been a lot more relaxed in the Dark Lord’s camp. Voldemort had been a lot less paranoid and a lot more refined in his cruelty. Some of the more spoiled pure-blood Death Eaters were in it mostly for the thrill. Meanwhile their outnumbered and outmatched opponents were mostly scampering for cover. So victories were often followed by decadent, outrageous parties. Before Lily had been at risk, he had indulged as well, swept away in the madness of the blood and senses. He still felt shame at those foggy memories. After he had switched sides, he had been forced to get ever more creative with untraceable potions that allowed him to remain sober at all times.

He had been sober and alert for almost twenty years, constantly worried about the fate of the war, being discovered, Lily’s son, his students, the school, even the dead-end job he had always despised. He was long over due for some oblivion. One he had finished his second glass, it occurred to him that alcohol was ill advised given the combination of potions and the Percocet he had taken today. He shrugged and poured himself some more.

He was on his fourth glass then that he saw her. At first, he thought he was already drunk and imagining things but upon closer inspection, he realised that it was indeed her. The Gryffindor princess. The insufferable know-it-all also known as Hermione Granger. So that was why Minerva had been missing a cub when visiting him. The prim and pure warrior maiden had been busy planning an escapade to the seedy side. He lowered his gaze to his still half full glass, hoping to avoid an encounter. He had had enough of the lot of them to last him a lifetime. Perhaps there was some merit in his taking on his Prince inheritance. The Prince Manor was up North, in a rather isolated spot, far away from the closest magic neighbours. Maybe he would be left alone there, since Cokeworth and London were no longer safe for him.

“Professor!”

Her voice was a mass of agitation and nervous surprise. His eyes snapped to her face and understood in an instant why she was there. Granger looked haunted, her face almost as pale as his, dark shadows lining her red-rimmed eyes. She had been crying too.

“I’m sorry,” she began uncertainly. “I… I have never seen you in muggle clothes….”

The Prince Manor all the way up north had never sounded more appealing.

“This is a place of ill repute,” he cautioned, careful to eye her with a good measure of disdain. He hoped the alcohol wouldn’t tamper the impact of his glare.

She lowered her gaze to her shoes. “Nobody would be looking for me here.”

“That was what I was hoping too.”

A faint blush touched the upper part of her cheeks. She had caught his implication. “May I sit… Sir… please?”

He stifled a sigh. Even when he was no longer their teacher, he was still stuck looking after these brats. “Miss Granger, go home. Get a good night’s sleep. Whatever is bothering you would look less forbidding come morning.”

“I can’t sleep,” she said, continuing to stand by his table, sticking out like a sore thumb in this pub. Witch or no witch, she was not safe bumbling about this side of London.

“If you would not leave, then at least, sit down. You are attracting attention and this is the wrong sort of sport for that,” he drawled in a voice that sounded too much like the one he had used in the classroom for his liking.

She cast an uneasy glance around, making two burly men sitting by the bar take notice. Severus wanted to kill her himself. He slid a foot forward under the table and pushed the chair across the table from him towards her. Then he raised his eyes and fixed the two men staring at Granger with an icy glare that had been known to intimidate Death Eaters. The men looked away immediately. This kind knew how to recognize a bigger predator than them. As Granger slid in the proffered seat, he cast a wordless spell making a few alterations to the chemistry of the beer the two were having. A moment later pained cries erupted from the table by the bar. Granger actually tried to turn her head and gawk.

“Keep your eyes upfront, you daft girl,” he growled.

“Why?”

“You are a long way from Hogwarts, Miss Granger. There are actual consequences for misbehaving out here,” he cautioned and stood. “Do not make a move until I return!” He marched to the bar and ordered a bottle of non-alcoholic apple cider and got her a glass.

“Drink this,” he instructed. “Then leave!”

“If I do not, what are you going to do? Deduct Gryffindor house points? As you have just so obligingly pointed out, we are not at Hogwarts any more.”

She was spoiling for a fight, he could tell. Bully for her! So was he!

“Then do me a favour and attempt to get yourself hurt in some other place!” He sat back down and took a gulp of his whiskey.

“What are you drinking?” she wanted to know.

“Pumpkin juice,” he said nastily.

She glared at him and grabbed his bottle to fill the glass he had brought her for the cider. He had been head of a House at Hogwarts. He had dealt with hormonal, sullen teenager girls for years. He had hoped to get some sugar into her, perk her back up and then send her on her merry way. Since she had refused, he leaned back in his seat to watch the show. He was almost certain this was her first time trying whiskey, let alone one as questionable as the one they sold here.

A true Gryffindor, she sucked in a generous portion of whiskey and paused before her whole face turned into a distorted grimace. She coughed and sputtered and spat indignantly, getting a few drops on her denim jacket. Her eyes watered, her face beet red.

“Did you have enough?” he asked.

She pulled out a tissue and wiped her mouth. “No,” she wheezed out.

“How did you find such a place, anyway?” He imbued his tone with implications.

She was forced to take a sip of her cider before she gave the whiskey another, much more cautious try. “When Ron, Harry and I were on the run… we heard things.”

“I suppose I cannot entirely complain since your current adventure kept you from joining the Gryffindor incursion into my house.”

Her face fell. “Yes, that was today… I’m terribly sorry, Professor… I have just arrived from Canada. Otherwise, I would have been there.” She turned that hatefully compassionate gaze on him. “How are you feeling, Sir?”

“Presently… irritated.” He allowed a pregnant pause to separate his clearly enunciated words. He was beginning to sober up too. Yes, he was definitely irritated.

She slumped in her seat, her chin falling to her chest. A lone tear dripped from her left eye.

The universe lead a personal vendetta against him. Of that much Severus was sure.

“Professor Mcgonagall told me, of course… And Harry. I haven’t seen Ron… well, it would have been awkward… but there was a chance my parents had been found in Newfoundland so I had to go but as it turns out, it was just another false alarm.”

Taking a swig of his whiskey, he resigned himself to his fate. “What happened to your parents?”

Another tear came. “I had to protect them when things turned to worse during the war. So I used Obliviate on them and they went abroad. It wouldn’t have been safe for them to stay in England but now we can’t find them.” She sniffled and then blew her nose into her tissue before taking a small sip of her whiskey.

Of course, the main issue with Hermione Granger was that when she encountered a challenge, she made it her mission in life to conquer it. The other issue with Hermione Granger was that once she opened her mouth, she was incapable of closing it. She took his dully voiced question as an invitation to spend the better part of a half an hour elaborating on what had been done to attempt and locate her parents and giving him her detailed opinion on the Obliviate counter curse and counter potions complete with arguments and examples. He wondered why they had never tried having her talk Voldemort to death. He was almost positive it would have done the trick.

“I was wondering,” he finally said when he caught a break. “When you would need to pause for breath.”

She looked contrite. “You are right. All I have done is talk about myself and my problems. You haven’t really told me how you are. I imagine you must have been pleased to see Professor Mcgonagall and Professor Slughorn again, even if my Head of House did come with a whole host of Gryffindors.” She actually tried to smile at him. It made for a miserable picture, given her exhausted visage and the wretched expression in her eyes. “I almost forgot. Professor Flitwick and Madam Hooch are planning to come visit soon as well and I’m certain many from your own House would like to….”

“Good. You can tell them all that I will have moved five minutes before they arrived.”

“Really? Where to?”

“The Moon, if I can manage it.”

She blinked at him before emitting a small chuckle. “I have never noticed before but you are funny. Snide but funny. I guess I have been too focused on doing well in Potions when I was still in school. Besides, sarcasm is really the kind of humour you don’t grow to appreciate until you are a bit older… more adult, I mean.” She lowered her gaze, suddenly becoming grim again, and covered for it with another sip of her drink.

“This experiment of yours is at an end,” he said dryly. “It is high time you left. Besides, is must be past your bedtime too.”

The glare she shot him was fiery. “I am not a child!”

“Then cease behaving like one!”

“Why do you care? If you are so annoyed with me, why don’t you just leave? I’m no longer your responsibility.”

Here lay the crux of the matter. At Hogwarts he had had many means at his disposal. He could have sent her back to bed or threaten her with deducting House points and expulsion. Now that they weren’t students and teacher any more, things had gotten more complicated. Still he couldn’t abandon her in this place: she was getting drunk, most likely had no experience with it, and to top it all, she was also distraught. At best, she risked exposure, at worst….

“Burden would have been a more appropriate term,” he said, baiting her further, hoping it would drive her to storm off.

“Call it whatever you wish, it’s off your shoulders. So why are you still here?”

He winced, remembering his trial. The memories he had shared with Potter had given everyone the gift of hindsight and that made it more and more difficult for him to hide behind the biting facade he had worked so hard at putting in place.

He tried to seem bored, unengaged. “I have nothing better to occupy myself with at present. Besides, I appear to be cursed to nurse you, dunderheads, until they were old and grey.”

“No…. You were always there… between us and trouble, even if we didn’t you there… especially, if we didn’t want you there. Like with Sirius and werewolf Remus. You could have gone to Dumbledore or gotten the Dementors but no, you thought Harry, Ron and I were alone with an insane murderer and a werewolf and you rushed in to save us. All those years, every time… it almost beggars belief that we didn’t figure out but then I guess you wouldn’t have been a very good spy if you were easy to read.” She smiled sadly, wistfully. “Thank you.”

“Miss Granger, you are drunk. And I should be drinking with a….”

She wagged a finger at him and made a tsk like sound under her breath. “Hm, I’m no longer your student! I bet you would give anything to be able to give me detention right now.”

“Not everything.”

She paused to pour herself another glass. He became alarmed when he realized he didn’t know how many she had had already. The mix of alcohol and medicine was taking its toll on his brain.

“He should be celebrating, shouldn’t we?”

“What should we be celebrating?”

She stabbed a finger at him. “See you get it. We won. We… I should be happy. But I can’t. It’s not just that I’ve lost track of my own parents after I erased every memory of me they had. I see them!” She leaned forward a bit. “Fred, Remus, Tonks… everyone… every time I close my eyes. And when I don’t see them, I hear it… the laughter!”

He frowned. “The laughter?”

“Yes, the laughter,” she answered darkly. “It’s everywhere. Ron and Harry don’t understand. I guess it doesn’t help that Ron and I can’t seem to know how to talk to each other now that we’re broken up.”

“They will understand,” he said darkly. “Sooner or later the ghosts of war come for us all. Your friends may seem to have been spared for now but they are not. Do you think perhaps that all your problems died with the Dark Lord? No, they are merely beginning. The nightmares are the first of many. You are one of the Golden Trio, the great victors of the Dark Lord. Everyone will want a slice of you. They will pounce, tear and hound you until you have nothing left to give. Do you imagine perhaps that I do not know why you are in a place like this? You wanted to hide away and lick your wounds where nobody can see what you have been reduced to, away from prodding and well-meaning concern? You sought somewhere where you can admit, even if it is only to yourself, that you are no longer the child you have been, the prim and proper, insufferable know-it-all Gryffindor princess?”

She was crestfallen. “What do I do?” she asked weakly.

She sounded so lost, places in his heart that he had long thought frozen, gave an unexpected twinge. He stomped it down mercilessly.

“Why should I know?”

“Because you know everything. You are the Half-Blood Prince. You were correcting textbooks while you still only in school. Your skills are Occlumency are such that you fooled Voldemort himself for years. I’m not so naive that I failed to comprehend why many wanted you to receive the Kiss. They are afraid of the power you yield. Of the power and knowledge you will gain from now on as well.”

“Yes,” he spat impatiently. “But you are the know-it-all.”

“I don’t know _this_ ,” she said, her voice breaking.

She really didn’t belong in a place like this!

“And I cannot enlighten you. There are certain advantages to being hated. Nobody expects anything but the absolute worst from you. Spying on the Dark Lord was indeed the difficult part. Fooling the lot of you was child’s play. All I had to do was be the man I saw when I looked into your eyes.”

# # #

Severus could not have said what awoke him. He had heard the low hum before he opened his eyes. The blinding flash and the click registered at the same time. He sat up abruptly, wand in hand, and instantly regretted it when his nausea and bile rose in throat. The world tilted perilously around him, his temples throbbing and his head feeling as if an angry cactus was attempting to break free from his skull.

That odious woman from the Daily Prophet shoved a microphone in his face asking about inappropriate relations with a student. His wand came up.

“Expelliarmus,” he commanded, surprised at how much lower and gruffer his voice sounded, and sent Rita Skeeter flying though the door behind her.

A pained moan caused him to turn his head to the side. Hermione Granger was in the process of struggling her way up to a sitting position on the bed next to him. The blanket was slipping off her revealing that he had gone to bed with her jacket still on. Icy horror overcame him, driving away the head-ached and the nausea. He hadn’t, had he?

Thankfully, his brain never forgot anything. A Legilimens as skilled he could easily delve for the right memories. Not sparing himself at all and heedless of any pain he might endure, he pushed the images of the previous evening to the forefront. They danced before his eyes dizzyingly fast, driving him into the paroxysm of whiplash.

Relief washed over him in a tidal wave so massive it took his breath away. He had taken the girl to one of the rooms above the pub to sleep off her intoxication. He had removed her shoes before he had pulled a blanket over her but even then, despite his addled state, he had been careful not to let his fingers slip from the soles of moccasins. She had been out as light the moment her body had hit the mattress. Unfortunately, he hadn’t fared much better and had collapsed next to her atop the covers.

Granger’s face was a mask of discomfort and confusion. Questions began to fall from her lips almost immediately.

He did not know how yet but he was well aware that this would still end up being his fault.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry I didn't get to reply to all your wonderful comments. Thank you for leaving them. I will get to them as soon as I am able. Meanwhile, enjoy a fresh new chapter.


	9. Notes on A Scandal

_Now_

Being a Death Eater had not been without its perks. One of the most important ones had been the connections Severus had gotten to make. If he found himself solely lacking when it came to forging genuine relationships, he more than made up for it in erecting strategic alliances.

The Malfoys had an old family friend and by old he meant about 500 years old. The Countess von Blut was quite a character and he had always had to tread carefully in her presence but since she didn’t suffer fools any more gladly than he did, he did feel a measure of affinity with her.  She lived just outside of the town Calw, in a l avish villa overlooking the colourful collection of timber frame houses nestled in the valley of the river Nagold. 

He found the Countess much like as he had when Lucius Malfoy had introduced them when they had sought refuge with her during a continental raid they had run for Voldemort in the early days of the First Wizarding War. The Countess liked to conduct herself as if she were above the petty issues of both muggles and Wizardkind but she had sheltered them for the sake of her friendship with the Malfoy family. 

T he Countess was holding court with a mixed batch of bowtruckles, erklings, vampires and local goblins and elves. Some bristled at his approach but his host silence d them with a single glare. 

Severus put a hand to his chest and bowed respectfully. Those who forgot their manners around the Countess did not live long. “Your Excellency is most kind to receive me on such a short notice,” he said politely, enunciating every word clearly and crisply. Thankfully she spoke a fluent if strongly accented English, for he did not know a word of her native dialect and his German was less steady than he would have wished.

“Ah, Severus, it has been a while but then British Wizardkind has been rather busy of late. Nasty business, that war with Lord Voldemort, and a waste of time, you ask me. If the Dark Lord wished to be immortal, all he had to do was come to one of us to be changed.”

Severus had no idea if the myths about vampire immortality were fact but the Countess von Blut certainly loved to conduct herself as if they were true, down to referring to muggles and Wizardkind alike as mortals.

“Thankfully, it is over now,” he pointed out. 

“Yes, yes…. I heard that you had the good sense to back the winning side in the end. I told Lucius and Narcissa that it was distasteful for anyone from good family to get involved in such a matter. Fighting like hoodlums in the streets? That was in very poor taste indeed. We will speak no more of it.”

“You shall meet with no disagreement from me, Your Excellency,” he said. “Or from Lucius or Narcissa who found themselves on the losing side in this war.” 

She smiled. She wore bright red lipstick on her thin lips. The pearly tips of her fangs peaked only a little but her grin made them all the more evident. “Narcissa tells me you have finally come into your family fortune and name. Perhaps I should call you Lord Prince from now.”

“Your Excellency may call me whatever she wishes,” he said.

“You are such a silver-tongued devil.” She stood. In heels she was almost as tall as him. She wore a splendid cream-coloured, floor-long dress and pearl jewlery while her brittle, dark hair was tied up in a bun at her nape. “Walk with me, Severus, will you?” 

He offered her his arm, imitating a gesture he had seen among the fanciest of the pure-bloods. She smile at him.  She smelled strongly of citrus and tuberose with just a hint of spice thrown in the mix. Two vampires and an  erkling  made to follow them but she waved them off. She indicated a set of double doors that lead to a spacious terrace filled with potted Japanese roses. The view was spectacular: woods covered mountains converged on the quaint  little  town in the valley. 

“I must confess I found your letter to be rather disturbing in nature, Severus. Are quite certain?”

“I wish I were not,” he said truthfully. “But another broken ouroboros of risen Inferi is spawning across continental Europe even as we speak in much the same fashion as the one in Great Britain.”

She nodded, her expression darkening. “I am fond of muggles, Severus. Without their industriousness I would still be living on that ruin up in the mountains. Instead I have running water and blood banks.  I do not like meddling into their tiresome affairs, if I can avoid it, but still I would rather they didn’t go extinct.”

“A sentiment I return entirely. This is why I came to you. I require your assistance.” He handed her the parchment summarizing his findings of the connection between Inferi and the broken ouroboros.

S he scanned the document quickly then returned it to him. “I am old, Severus, but I am not that old. I am afraid I know nothing of this matter you have unearthed. However, my daughter is something of a historian among us. Have you met Delphine?” 

“I have not yet had the pleasure.”

“She should be able to help you. If not, I have connections in Transylvania. Perhaps they could be of some service.”

“I would be most obliged.”

She slipped her arm free of his own and stepped closer to the bannister. The sun had set behind the mountains but even if it hadn’t, it would not have killed her merely proven extremely uncomfortable and a drain ed her of  her  strength. “Keep  me  appraised of this situation. I have a feeling it will move well past an inconvenience before it is finished. What does your Ministry of Magic has to say on the matter?”

“That I cannot be trusted.”

“Bureaucrats,” she spat dismissively. “The chair could be burning underneath them and they still wouldn’t move.”

The corners of his mouth twitched into a grin. Getting vampires involved would not improve his case with the Ministry but at this point he did not care. The Countess was willing to help and her word carried weight in vampire society. That was all that counted!

He verbalized his agreement and she turned to him again with a fresh smile.

“Enough of the ghastliness,” she said. “Let us speak of something more jolly. Narcissa informed me you had gotten married.”

He resisted the urge to cringe. Given their unsavoury involvement in the war, the Malfoys were virtually pariahs in the British wizarding world so Narcissa could scarcely afford to be picky about her gossip partners or the topics thereof. “I am afraid I don’t find myself inclined to find that topic any more happier. In fact, if you do not mind, I would prefer if we continued to speak of Inferi?”

“Narcissa did mention it was a sort of arrangement. I know this century frowns on that. I find that to be one of its more vexing qualities. When I was still mortal, most marriages were arranged and they were no less unfortunate that those of today. You are an intelligent man so you must realise infatuation is a poor base on which to form a lifelong attachment. Tell me, is your wife dim-witted?”

“She was bright as a student,” he replied diplomatically. “But too eager to prove herself. She is very young.”

“So are you where I’m concerned. For mortals time never fails to cure youth. If inexperience is your only objection to the young lady, perhaps you should consider a practical approach to this. As a Prince, you are expected to bear heirs to carry on the family name.”

He hid a wince in the nick of time. It had been one of the main reasons why he hadn’t wanted to take on his family inheritance.

“I assure you, Milady, the objections are not solely on my part,” he said instead, hoping it would satisfy her and help change the subject. He was keen to get on with his object in being here but he couldn’t push her. Not if he wanted her aid. So he pushed down his mounting impatience and vexation at her choice of topic.

“Come now, Severus. How can that be? You are a powerful wizard, some might say the most powerful left in the world. You are intellectually gifted, educated, well-mannered, wealthy, from an excellent family. What more could your new bride want?” 

G ood looks. A modicum of social skills. A reputation other than his. A man her own age. All of those  and more were on the tip of his tongue but he did not voice them. “A woman of your experience would not think that to be important.” 

“Then perhaps this should lend you some perspective, too. Before you leave, I shall pick something from my own jewellery collection for you to take as a gift to your wife. Tell me, what would she like?”

He started. Refusing the Countess would have been most unwise. “I do not know Hermione well enough to offer an appropriate answer,” he said carefully.

“Hermione? As in The Winter’s Tale? How clever! Then I shall choose something Elizabethan.”

“You are most gracious.” He punctured the last word with an inclination of his head. “But I fear you gift would be wasted on Hermione for, you see, she has no interest in jewellery.”

“I am very nearly 500 years old, Severus, so I have come to learn a thing or two. Every woman likes to wear beautiful things, whether she can admit to it or not. Now… Narcissa tells me she is muggle-born, your Hermione.”

“She is.”

“Good for you! Take it from a vampire: blood should mix. All that inbreeding amongst the Pure-Bloods could only lead to degeneracy.”

“That would explain my late cousin.”

She laughed.

# # #

“More light reading?”

Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin, her hand finding her wand in her pocket. She relaxed the fingers that had clenched around it when she saw it was only Percy. Since the war she had been too twitchy and still couldn’t find it in her to relax. Maybe that was why Snape saw threats everywhere. He just couldn’t accustom himself to peace after so many years under cover.

She had been so engrossed in reading _Living with Legilimens: Choose Yours Minds Wisely_ during her lunch break that she hadn’t even heard P ercy enter her office. To make up for it, she  smiled at him. “Ron told you?”

“When we were at Hogwarts, he wouldn’t stop talking about your way with books, though, come to think of it, it was more like gushing really. It’s a pity you two didn’t work out.” 

“Not all school romances last,” she said sadly. That discovery had sapped at her innocence almost as much as the war. “In fact, it seems most don’t.” 

“Well, you’re always going to be an honorary Weasley.”

“I know, Percy, thank you.”

“King…. The Minister wants to see you.”

She got up and went to follow him.

“How come you are reading about Legilimency, anyway?” he asked once they were in the corridor.

Hermione shrugged aiming for nonchalance. She guessed that _to try and get into my husband’s head after I firmly told him to stay out of mine_ was not an answer that would have gone down well. It’s nothing really. I just saw the book at Flourish and Blotts and just got curious, I suppose.” 

H e grasped her upper arm to halt her in her tracks. “This isn’t about Snape, is it? He’s not trying anything, is he?”

She shook her head vehemently, a vision of a dying sprout amid a thriving lily garden entering her mind unbidden. “Of course, not.  My husband cannot bear for me to be anywhere near him. Th e last thing he wants is t o take a trip inside my head.” It was true and it did sting. Hermione had always prided herself on her mind and it was quite a blow to the ego to have  it dismissed as wholly unappealing by one of the few men in the world capable of being her intellectual equal if not more. 

“Good, good,” Percy said. “I know he’s probably the most powerful Legilimens left alive but still there are ways to get around it.”

There weren’t but she didn’t tell him that.

#  # #

Lucius Malfoy slammed a fist down on the delicate ebony coffee table, rattling the pristine china figures adorning it. Narcissa had redecorated the manor entirely, no doubt eager to erase what Voldemort had put them through in their own home.

“You want me to help muggles?” Lucius spat out through gritted teeth.

“No,” Severus replied, remaining unflappable and measuring Lucius with a scornful yet bored gaze. “I expect you to pay your debt to me. What would have become of your son if I had not stepped in and killed Dumbledore?”

Draco winced visibly, his eyes trained on the plush milk coloured at his feet.

“Do not frame that as kind of favour you did to my family. That was part of your and Dumbledore’s little game.”

“We will do it,” Narcissa said quietly. 

Lucius started but his wife laid a gently hand where his robe had ridden up a little on his right wrist and he simmered down instantly. The Malfoys loved each other. It was clear for everyone to see. He felt a most unwanted pang. Every time he thought he had come to terms with the loss of Lily, the old wound opened anew and bled fresh blood.

“You can depend on us,” Draco said, disturbing his maudlin train of thought. “Just tell us what you need, Professor.”

Lucius sneered. Draco raised his chin hauntingly and glared at his father.

“Do not be so glum, Lucius! Once this creature, for lack of a better term, is finished with the muggle world, where do you think it will turn its attention next? You cannot trick your way out of this one? It is not here to recruit followers.”

“If Voldemort truly did something like this shortly before his death, wouldn’t one of us have noticed something?” Narcissa interjected.

Severus shook his head. “If he told anyone then that person would have been Bellatrix and we cannot well question her on the matter now, can we?”

Narcissa lowered her gaze. Whatever else Bellatrix might have been, she was still her sister and Narcissa had a right to mourn her.

“But how can we fight something that has no body? That we don’t even know what it wants. You cannot fight a thought.” Draco’s concern seemed genuine.

“You can,” Severus replied firmly. “If you have the proper weapons.”

“I know a good deal of people in Slytherin who would want to help,” Draco went on. “They might not think anything of muggles but they would come to _your_ aid.” 

Severus nodded. “Talk to them. We will meet again at my house on Spinner’s End before the week’s end. Narcissa, you remember the address, do you not?”

She made a face. “What is wrong with Prince Manor?”

“Nothing,” he returned. “It needs about the same amount of restoration as my former childhood home.” He paused for effect before adding: “Delphine Faust is bound to arrive by Friday and I have promised the Countess von Blut to host her. She will be living at the Manor for the duration of her stay in England. I did not think it proper for us to share a residence.”

Lucius snickered. “Prince Manor is wide enough to host half of the vampire population of the world. Besides, your wife suffers from no concerns about propriety. Why should you?”

“I wouldn’t believe everything the Prophet says,” Draco piped, shooting his father a less than friendly gaze. “Especially if it comes from that Skeeter woman. Granger has her faults but she is a goody two-shoes, more so than even her two empty-headed friends. She is not straying.”

Severus scowled. He didn’t know whether Draco’s words had been for his benefit, in which case they were wasted, or for Hermione’s, in which case they were inexplicable. Either way, the temperature of the room registered a steep drop. He had picked up the tension between the Malfoys when he had come in. There was something the matter with them. Severus, however, had no interest in getting involved in their familial quarrels. He only cared that they were willing to help, regardless of their reasons.

Narcissa smiled diplomatically in order to break the stalemate and summoned a house elf to bring them more pastries. 

#  # #

_A year earlier_

Hermione sat at the long table in the Weasleys’ kitchen, not bearing to raise her head and meet everyone’s gazes. The concern in the room was palpable and Mcgonagall’s presnce only served to drive home the point of the seriousness of the situation. Molly kept trying to push a platter of short bread towards Hermione. Not wanting to upset her, Hermione took a piece with a small, sheepish smile.

A moment later, Eroll hit himself against the window. Ginny rushed to get the Prophet.

“How bad is it? Let me see,” Hermione said.

Ginny shot her mother a pleading look. Molly got up.

“Everyone out,” she called and gave her husband a gentle shove to emphasize her point further. “Why don’t you let Hermione, me and Professor Mcgonagall discuss this matter between us women?”

Hermione snatched the paper from Ginny. On her way up she caught sight of Ron’s pained look and cringed. She mouthed a  _sorry_ at him but he just shook his head and left.  Her heart sinking, Hermione lowered her gaze to the Prophet. The front page featured a photograph of her and Snape together in bed in  that sordid room for rent  on the wrong side of London. The title was sickening, the article even more so. 

“If I ever get Rita Skeeter in a jar again, I am never ever letting her out,” Hermione muttered. “She was there when I arrived from Canada and when I wouldn’t talk to her, she had to have followed me around.”

Molly shut the door after the last of the Weasley s and came to sit across from Hermione. She patted her left hand. Hermione took a ginger bite of her biscuit. 

Mcgonagall’ s face was a mask of concern. Hermione failed to grasp what the big deal was. Sure, she would have to deal with some particularly nasty gossip for a while but then when the next juicy bit came along, the matter would be forgotten entirely. They didn’t think that she would really…. She felt her cheeks heat up.

“I didn’t… we didn’t…. I’ll admit, just as long as you don’t tell Professor Snape, that he was right. I shouldn’t have been there and I shouldn’t have been drinking as much as I did but all he did was put me to bed. Then he must have passed out next to me. Skeeter had to have taken her pictures sometime after that.” 

Mcgonagall  nodded, her fingers curled around her cup of tea. “Severus’ tongue has always been notoriously sharp in class but his behaviour towards students has never been anything but beyond reproach.  However, you are no longer his student and you are of age. Neither of you ow e s us any kind of explanation but you see, Hermione, the wizarding world is different from that of Muggles. The expectations of young women… and men alike are not what you are used to.”

Hermione frowned. “What does that mean?”

“We are worried about your reputation, dear,” Molly said.

“My reputation?”

“You are not being judged here,” Mcgonagall said. “But you need to be made aware of the particularities of your situation. To be in such a place was bad enough but it could have been explained away as a moment of youthful folly but to be discovered in bed with your former teacher… a man with Severus’ terrible name. The scandal alone will follow you around for the rest of your life. I’m afraid that under the circumstances you cannot hope to secure employment with the Ministry or anywhere else reputable. Now I would offer you a place at Hogwarts and I know that you would rise to the occasion but you must understand that the parents of the children would never allow it.” 

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”

Mcgonagall  looked chagrined but still she nodded as if to confirm Hermione’s rhetorical exclamation. Hermione jumped to her feet. 

M olly put up a hand. “Hermione, please try to understand, under regular circumstances something could still be done to mitigate the worst of it but you are famous, dear. You are a war hero, one of the Golden Trio. People would say you are setting a bad example…  especially given the other person involved.  You will never see or hear the end of it.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Stick my head in the sand? Drop off the face of the earth just to make everyone feel better?”

Molly and her professor exchanged a look.

“There might be an alternative,” Mcgonagall said carefully. 

Hermione put her piece of shortbread on the table. “What kind of alternative?”

“Would he even consider it?” Molly asked, sounding almost frightened.

“I will speak to him,” Mcgonagall replied, sounding entirely too serious even by her own standards. 

“I am still in the room,” Hermione shoted. Speak to whom? About what?”

Mcgonagall  turned to her. “To Severus, of course.”

“What does he have to do with anything?”

Both Molly and  Mcgonagall  seemed dismayed. “Everything,” Molly replied. “Especially if we can prevail upon him to agree to an arrangement.”

Hermione had surreal impression of being under water. She stared at the other two women as if they were speaking a foreign language she failed to grasp. “What kind of arrangement?”

Molly grimaced. “A marital one, dear.”

Hermione got to her feet once more. “I need some air so I’m going go out to get it. Feel free to stay back here and contemplate just how insane this is.”

S he darted out the door, ignoring them as they called after her, imploring her to understand. Her heart was racing. Of course, she d idn’t understand. She didn’t even want to, for once. 

She very nearly ran into Ron who gathered her into a bear hug. Hermione hid her face into her shoulder.

“Nothing happened, Ronald. I swear. I don’t want you to think that I would do anything like after we broke up less than a month ago.”

He squeezed her to him harder. “Nobody believes that, Mione! I mean, it’s Snape, the greasy git, for crying out loud!”

She drew back, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “Is that the only reason you believe me?”

“No…. No! But you should know that if you meet someone for real… I mean, we agreed that we could still be friends. You shouldn’t have to hide it. Not from me. And you would always be welcome here, alone or with somebody else.” He nipped on his lower lip. “Well, you understand….”

“That you still have the emotional range of teaspoon. Yes, I do.”

His laughter was cut short by a dark shadow looming over them both. They broke apart at once and got out their wands. The shadows hovered like  black smoke for an instant or two,  eerie and frighteningly similar to an encroaching Dementor, then lowered itself to brush the leaves of the closest thatch of trees. It gained human formed when it touched the ground and the tar flitted apart as a man emerged from it and headed towards them.  Severus Snape’s long cape flowed behind him as he stalked up purposefully.  He raised a wandless hand and his lips moved without sound. The wands surrounding the Weasley house reverberated around Hermione then shrieked back and away from him. As he approached, she could see that his face  was a mask of cold, pale granite.  His coal like eyes were burning with resentment and fury. Hermione thought twice before she lowered her wand. 

TBC


	10. Slytherin Pride

_Now_

Hermione entered the office of the Minister of Magic only to find the thick stack of scrolls she had sent him earlier resting on his desk.

Kingsley smiled warmly at the sight of her. “Hermione…. Come in, please. Have a seat.”

She did. “Have you had the time to review my research, Sir?”

He nodded, got up and poured her a cup of tear from the trolley standing not far away from his desk. “I did. If I wasn’t all too aware already of the q uality and precision of  your work, I might have impressed. Things being what they are, I want you to tell me yourself what you think. Cream, sugar or lemon wedge?”

“Cream and sugar. We both agree that there needs to be a reform of Azkaban. Even if the Dementors hadn’t sided with Voldemort during the war, allowing them to drive imprisoned criminals mad with despair is a cruel and unusual punishment and it needs to stop.”

Kingsley handed her the cup of tea before he retook his seat behind his desk. “Yet you have doubts.”

“More like questions.” She sipped at her tea. “When Minister Eldritch Diggory wanted to remove the Dementors in the 18th century, many opposed this reform because they feared a Dementor invasion of the mainland. While I’m not saying we shouldn’t evict them from Azkaban, in fact, I cannot recommend it strongly enough, this objection is not without merit. Once out of Azkaban, they could became the bane of both muggle and magic England or invade the continent in search of a new food source.”

Kingsley leaned forward intently, his hands folded on his desk. “What do you propose then?”

“What do we know of the Dementors’ origin? Where did they come from? All I could find in our records pertained to the experiments and tortures practised by the Dark wWzard, Ekrizdis, who build the fortress. Surely we do not believe that he could create life even in Dementor form. Voldemort was the most powerful wizard in history and even he could not achieve that.”

He frowned, looking dubious. “Dementors have always been assumed to grow in dark, foul places like mould… or a kind of monstrous plan life form.” 

“If that is true, then where did the seed come from? Perhaps if we could identify their origin, we could send them back there once we remove them from Azkaban.”

“They are best known as coming from Azkaban in our country but they exist in other places in the world as well. I don’t know what to tell you, Hermione, other than that you are right. Once they leave Azkaban, the Dementors cannot be allowed to wander about in search of new victims, be they wizards or muggles. Containment and control have always been a problem with them. I see no other solution than to pose this question to specially constituted commission of wizards and witches. I cannot recall if anyone had ever even asked the question you just did about the Dementors. Most are content never to have to think of them. However, we have no choice. We cannot reform Azkaban only to generate an invasion of some of Voldemort’s worst allies.”

She nodded. “May I ask to be a part of that commission? Also I believe we should invite a few foreign experts as well. Perhaps they have more information on Dementors.”

He smiled at her. “You are going to make an excellent minister one day,  Hermione . Until then, I was just about to ask you to coordinate the effort for the creation of this committee.” 

She accepted readily, excited to be granted such an important task at her age and after working for the Ministry for barely a year. Besides, it would help her take her mind off things. Speaking of things she would rather forget…. “Have you had a chance to investigate Se… Snape’s claims about the threat to Muggles?”

His smile vanished in an instant. “You will not like the answer.”

“I have always assumed as much. So is it definite then? That he is lying?”

“He is. The Aurors found no evidence linking the grave robberies and the triple murder to magic. They appear to be the work of a disturbed mind. Muggles are afflicted with such just as we are.”

She set her empty cup down on his desk, fighting to shake off the weird feeling of disappointment. Maybe Snape was right and she was really naive. “If that would be all, Minister, thank you for the tea!”

“Hermione… wait.” He breathed a heavy sigh. “I have ordered the Aurors to conduct a thorough investigation. If so much as a fraction of what Severus Snape claimed was true, then we could take no chances. The Muggles cannot be allowed to suffer from the wars of our world. The inquiry has revealed a few rather curious things about Snape himself. Do you know that he has travelled to the continent recently?”

“The Prince family has a castle near Florence. Maybe he wanted a holiday.” Even as she was peaking, she realised how absurd her words sounded. Severus Snape and relaxation were perfect anthesis of each other. 

“That is not all they have near Florence. How much has he told you about his family on his mother’s side?”

“Nothing,” she replied truthfully.

“Until about a century and a half ago when their magic and even intellectual prowess went on the decline, they were powerful dark wizards and witches. Not as powerful as Voldemort or as inclined to attempt to take over the world but nevertheless, they counted among the most predisposed towards the Dark Arts of the Pure-Bloods in England and, as you have probably already surmised, that is saying something. Their Florentine Dark Magic library is legendary. However, if he had simply taken a trip to Florence, we would not be having this conversation. After all, the man has a right to visit his properties.”

“Where else did he go?”

He opened of his desk drawers and took out a rolled-up owl-ready parchment. “I have received this from my German counterpart. The war has made your husband rather infamous.”

The document was in English, curt and to the point.  Snape had been to a town in the Northern Black Forest. “ Who is Countess Wilhelmina von Blut?” she asked after reading.

“An old family friend of the Malfoys, whom Snape visited immediately after returning from Europe., by the way. She is the informal leader of one of the most influential vampire covens in Europe. She also has allies among the Black Forest bowtruckles, Erklings and goblins.” 

She shuddered at the mention of Erklings. They were rumoured to eat children. “What could Severus want with all these creatures?”

“That I cannot tell you but I can tell you this: he and Lucius Malfoy visited the Countess during the First Wizarding War as well, one would presume to attempt and gain her support in rallying the European vampires to the cause of Voldemort. And yes, that was before Severus defected to our cause.”

She scowled, looking at him suspiciously. “What is this all about, Kingsley?” She had been avoiding calling him b y his given name, since he had become Minister of Magic. She did not want to give the appearance that she was drawing on their previous connection in order to garner favours. There were already plenty of rumours that she was using her position as a member of the Golden Trio for that purpose.

He gazed at her from the corners of her eyes. “There is more. Ever since Snape’s most recent visit to the Malfoy Manor, young Draco has been doing the rounds among his former Slytherin classmates.”

She shivered as if struck by an abrupt chill when she heard of the Malfoy Manor. “Draco? Maybe he was only visiting his old school friends.”

“Maybe.” 

“The war is over, Kingsley,” she said. “Severus was on our side during it and he was instrumental in our victory. He cannot plot to bring back Voldemort, because the Dark Lord is good and dead this time around.”

“Which leaves the path wide opened for a new Dark Lord.” 

“Severus Snape? Please tell me you don’t honestly think he’s trying to gather followers like Voldemort once did.”

“I don’t but there are many who do even in the Ministry, and you have to admit his actions of late have been highly suspicious.” 

“He thinks there is a threat left behind in the muggle world from our fight with Voldemort. Maybe he is seeking help against it.” She held up a hand when he would speak. “I am not saying he is right and the Aurors are wrong, Minister, but perhaps he has a hard time letting go of the hypervigilance his former position as a spy certainly entailed. He has been at war for most of his life. Adapting to the change in circumstance cannot be easy.”

If that was true, Snape was not the only one but she didn’t tell the Minister that. 

H e placed a hand beneath his chin, looking thoughtful. “It seems we  a re at an impasse. I have been considering a solution to our conundrum long and hard and I could come up with only one answer.” He looked at her pointedly. “Perhaps you could pay a little more attention to your husband and verify if you can notice any suspicious activities.”

Hermione sensed her temper about to flare. “You want me to spy on my husband, a war hero who risked his life every day to undermine the Dark Lord and provide Dumbledore with crucial information?”

“According to the memories Harry has shown all of us at Snape’s trial, he only did so out of his love for Lily Evans. Regrettably, she is no longer with us.” 

“Severus continued his mission for Dumbledore for years after the death of Harry’s Mum. Even if Severus Snape is the world’s greatest romantic and carried out a terribly dangerous undertaking in the memory of the woman he loved, why should that be significant? He could have done so because Voldemort’s grand-posturing annoyed him. He still helped us. And it still wouldn’t mean that he is vying to be the next Dark Lord.” 

He fixed her with a piercing gaze. “I realise I have no right to ask this of you, Hermione, but can you look me in the eye and tell me you are absolutely c ertain that all of Snape’s recent behaviour is not at least bit suspicious?” 

She lowered her eyes. He had her there. She couldn’t.

“Even if all his detractors are wrong,” he continued. “Would you not want to account for his innocence?”

She sneered in a manner that would have made Snape himself proud. Just because she couldn’t say that she trusted Snape entirely, she was still disgusted by what Kingsley was asking of her. “And we say that Slytherins are the master manipulators.” 

His eye-brows juggled a little. “What do you mean?”

“I mean would we be having this conversation if Severus had been the head of Gryffindor or… Hufflepuff House? Once a Slytherin, always a Slytherin, am I right?”

He chuckled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh, but the image of Snape as a Hufflepuff is hilarious.” 

“As hilarious as the notion that he was on the side of Light all along?”

He froze. “I am not sure I like what you are implying.”

“I am not sure I like what you are asking of me, Minister. For you see I remember Snape’s trial as well. I remember how we dragged one of our own before the entire Wizengamot while he could barely stand. I remember that he was in such a sorry state he fainted after Harry gave evidence. I remember that you said nothing of your planned reform of Azkaban when there was talk of giving _him_ the Dementors’ Kiss. And I remember the child and later the young man in his memories: the socially inept boy with unfortunate features, overgrown, greasy hair and a consummate dedication to studying and following the rules. Do you know why I remember him so well? Because I used to be him. In the muggle school I attended and during my first year at Hogwarts. Even Ron was mean to me. But then everything changed. Harry, Ron and I became the best of friends and we could always count on each other, on Dumbledore, on the Weasleys, on the Order…. But things never changed for Snape. I might not have understood that when I was in school but I understand now. He has always been different and different means target. In our world as in that of Muggles.” 

He leaned over the desk again, his glare dark and authoritative. “I shall tell you one thing that has not changed since you came i n through the door to my office: I am the British Minister of Magic and you work for me.  I would advi s e to mind your tongue and revise your attitude. Being a member of the Golden Trio does not entitle you to the privilege of being forward with me and making unfounded accusations. Severus Snape is not being targeted because he is different!  He is under scrutiny because he is quite possibly the most powerful wizard left alive and he possesses a unique aptitude for the Dark Arts a nd for  Legilimency. Exactly like Voldemort did, which is something you would do well to remember  as well . You work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.  I could have easily ordered you  to  report on your husband  but  instead I merely asked. You can say no. What you cannot do is take liberties  that  you do not have!” 

S he swallowed hard, suitable chastened. She used to have the freedom to speak her mind, no matter how controversial her opinions, at Hogwarts but the real world was proving to be wildly different place. Except for the way it regarded Slytherins, it seemed. She apologise quietly and Kingsley assured her no harm had been done.

“Do we create them, you think?” she inquired quietly after a brief, awkward pause. “The Dark Lords? Voldemort didn’t attend Hogwarts, Tom Marvolo Riddle did. Riddle went to Hogwarts and Voldemort graduated. He was there for seven years, under Dumbledore’s eyes… as was Snape. I looked into it. The vast majority of Voldemort’s followers came from Hogwarts and not schools where they actually study the Dark Arts.”

He bristled. “That is a question for the historians, Miss Granger. Now I believe I am due an answer from you. Will you help us or not?”

She still believed Snape was innocent. He could be like her, too shaken after the war to enjoy peace. He certainly didn’t sleep any better than her. Otherwise why would he wander the corridors of that tomb of a Prince Manor as if he was still on night hall duty at Hogwarts? Her conviction put her in a unique position to show Kingsley  that  the whispers about Snape as well as his own doubts and preconceptions were entirely without merit.  She nodded slowly, even as revolt slithered beneath her skin. She still didn’t like this. 

_# # #_

Hermione had tried carrying water in her hands to the small sprout and at first, it had seemed to do the trick. The plant grew and developed fat, pale green leaves. The ground around it continue to dry up and crack, though. Then the yellowish tinge began to spread again. One of the leaves flopped uselessly to the ground.

The lilies no longer seemed so beautiful to Hermione. She began to resent their health as they stretched their incandescent petals towards the sun, flaunting their gorgeous flowers. It almost hurt to look at them. Every time she returned to the sprout, it seemed that the lilies had drawn slightly closer, threatening to drown it in the sea of their beauty.

Hermione had considered moving the poor sprout away from the lilies but she feared that removing it from the ground would kill it for good. She thought of the woman who had inspired t he lilies . She did feel a modicum of discomfort given that she was Harry’s mother. Lily Evans Potter had to have been an extraordinary woman. She had seen her in the pictures Harry had. She had been beautiful indeed yet it still felt that Severus had exaggerated in his representation of her in the garden of lilies.  The brilliance of the flowers seemed a bit much. 

She marvelled at the depth of devotion Severus held for his childhood love. It was a blow to h er ego. Hermione did not like to entertain such thoughts but still it didn’t change that fact that she was a living, breathing woman and her husband for all intents and purposes only had eyes for a ghost. She wondered how it  felt  to be loved  so much,  that a man would go to war and be ready to die in memory of you. 

It was the stuff of movies and novels. It just didn’t seem possible in reality. Yet it was the reality Severus Snape of all people was living every day. The man  was redefining  being deep  and having layers . H ow many of them did he have exactly ? The greasy bat of the dungeons with his snide remarks and cutting insults was only a mask. The man beneath it was capable of incredible bravery, lifelong dedication and undying love. The kind of love poets dreamed of writing about. And then there was his mind. She had always known he was brilliant but apparently she hadn’t realised just  how much. She thought back to what she had seen of the textbook he had been correcting as a Hogwarts student. He was smarter than even her.  She  was  more than  a little jealous  of his brilliance. 

Before she left the garden she snapped one of the lily stems. It grew back immediately, the flower  larger and more lovely than before: its petal were now snow white and stripped with bright mauve. Of course! This was her mind but he had planted it there. It was not wholly under her control and her limited reading about L egilimency could not make for his years of practice.  She wished he would teach her about Legilimency and Potions and everything in between. She envied and coveted Harry’s few private lessons with him back at Hogwarts. 

Admitting defeat for now, she wandered through the forest, extending it before leading the river to loop around a gently sloped hill. She erected a narrow wooden bride over it, crossed it and started upwards, spreading soft, green grass and plain, white wild flowers everywhere, deliberately making their simple delicacy stand in stark contrast with the oppressing beauty of the lilies in the meadow.

Atop the hill she built a small cottage by drawing from the memory of a summer vacation in Wiltshire when she had been nine. She gave it a thatched golden straw roof and antiquated brick walls, one of which she covered with ivy. She went in through the narrow  wooden  door and  put oak beams in place and terracotta stone  floors  and made the finishings lavender, cream-coloured and muted blue. The kitchen and the bathroom became old-modish with ecru and white trims. Country flowers filled every pale china vase and pictures of the happiest moments of her childhood appeared on nearly every piece of furniture. 

She stared at her parents’ faces and wondered if she would ever see them again. Suddenly drained, she sank to the floor and began to sob, the sounds gut-wrenching to her own ears. The memories of that sunny Wiltshire holiday floated around her  and wrapped  her body  in a thin silvery mist. She pressed a hand to her mouth. It had been a year and a half since she had last seen h er parents . All this time they didn’t even know she existed. They were just gone. Gone, gone, gone…. And she had no idea how to find them. 

She fell asleep curled up in an oversized fluffy armchair. She knew that in reality she had been asleep all along, in her bed.  The cottage and  the  world spawn from Severus’ brief incursion into her mind faded around her until she found herself back amid the blackened ruins battle had reduced Hogwarts to. Voldemort and the Death Eaters and Harry and their allies stood face to face, ready to recommence fighting each other. Only that Voldemort was nowhere to be seen this time around. Instead Severus lead his former followers, his black cape soaring around him, ruffled by the window. 

“Give her to me and this ends here and now,” he said, his voice vibrating around them, thick and gravelly.

Her friends parted like a wave against the shore and she ambled up to him, her wand lowered in defeat. His long, pale fingers were cool when they wrapped around her neck but he didn’t choke her, instead  his thumb stroked over her pulse point. 

“You are mine,” he proclaimed, his eyes that burnt like dark opals bearing down on her. He leaned over her when she nodded weakly in response and kissed her hard on the mouth.

Hermione jolted awake.  Her heart was racing. She sat up on the bed and rubbed at her neck gingerly. 

# # #

If you asked Severus, the one major downside of being a Dark Lord was the followers. One had to cultivate them, assure their loyalty and manage their petty squabbles.  Allies were no different.  He sat stiffly in the armchair in the sitting room at Spinner’s End looking at the crop of former Slytherin students Draco had gathered. They sat on the floor or on the couch, depending how fortunate they had been upon attempting to find a seat. Severus didn’t entertain and he had had more than enough of them back when they had been crowding him in his office in the dungeons, in his lab or even i n the corridors chatting  incessantly about their stupid problems. That was not to say that adults didn’t have stupid problems because they did; they just had less time to talk about them.

Slytherins were pariahs at Hogwarts so while the students in other Houses could go any professor they wished, up to and including Dumbledore, those in his House only had him. He had ruled his House with an iron fist on the inside and attempted to provide them with as much protection as he could on the outside. He had been in no mood to repeat Professor Slughorn’s mistakes whose mix of favouritism and neglect had turned Slytherin House into a recruitment base for Voldemort.

He could see the after-effects of his strategy in this very room. Most Pure-Bloods had had only limited contact with both the muggle world and poverty, while the rest were still uneasy about the aura of decay surrounding his house. He could imagine they had never thought the formidable head of their House to be living in such conditions. Yet, unlike his previous,  mostly Gryffindor visitors, they knew better than to allow pity or dismay colour their countenances. So they remained still and waited as he explained the issue at hand.

He could guess that none of them were too keen on helping the muggle world but he hadn’t phrased his explanation as a question. He was also careful to make them aware that once the invader was done with the Muggles, they would be next. Once he was f inished , Pansy Parkinson actually raised her hand.  As if they were all back at Hogwarts and he still held authority over them.

“Yes, Miss Parkinson?” he said icily. 

“Could you teach us how to conjure a Patronus charm?”

He smiled thinly and without teeth as more than a few heads around the room bobbed in agreement. Even Draco seemed interested. 

“You have heard perhaps that dark wizards and witches cannot conjure such a charm. You hope that by being able to do so you would seem less ominous to Voldemort’s victors. That you would appear to resemble them. You are wrong. With or without the Dark Mark, you are all branded. You have been branded ever since the Sorting Hat uttered the word _Slytherin_ above your heads. You might as well wear it inscribed on your foreheads. No matter what you do or who you become, you shall bear the name _Slytherin_ for the rest of your lives. You might as well accept it now, for no charm could erase it. We are Slytherin! From the moment the Sorting Hat touched us until the moment of our death. And we fear no darkness. Darkness fears us!” He pulled to this feet meticulously, pulling his robes a little tighter around his body and brushing a wayward lock of hair from his face. Only then did he lift his wand into the air. “Now… close your eyes and focus on something or someone that brings you happiness or at least, contentment… and please feel free not to share it with me. Raise your wands and say _Expecto patronum_ as if you were attempting to extract the charm from the thought itself.”

When he uttered the incantation, Lily’s silver does burst from his wand and flashed through the room, brushing over the foreheads of his students. 

TBC


	11. Negotiations

_A year earlier_

Snape strolled to Hermione and Ron wearing the same forbidding expression they had come to know from school. His cape fanned around him and it seemed that its dark imprint gripped the atmosphere around the Burrow into an icy grip much like the touch of a Dementor. Hermione’s stomach clenched with unease. That was the last time she was drinking, she decided. Snape stopped in front of them, towering over them in a clearly deliberate manner. His unfriendly scowl and firm, discontent line of his mouth flung Hermione back into Potions class. She shrank onto herself half expecting him to give her detention or deduct a thousand points from Gryffindor for all eternity for being the other party in this mess. Then she remembered that school was out. The Ministry lead by Kingsley Shacklebolt had arranged for all the students who had participated in the Battle of Hogwarts to take their N.E.W.T.s at its own headquarters. Snape hadn’t been involved in the process, given that he had been still in a coma back then.

Hermione took a step forward and reasserted herself, tilting her chin slightly upwards. She was no longer his student. He didn’t intimidate her any more. Snape’s glower deepened, until a crease appeared between his brows. His eyes were so black they appeared to drink up the light. The malcontent etched onto his face increased to such levels that it all but morphed into revulsion. Where was Rita Skeeter when you needed her? The look on Snape’s visage would have cleared all questions about a possible dalliance between them in an instant.

“Mr. Weasley,” he said in that ominous soft voice of his. He nodded tersely at Ron who shot Hermione a nervous glance. “Miss Granger,” he jeered. “I was wondering if I might have a word?”

Ron stepped closer to Hermione. A faint, disdainful smirk twitched at Snape’s lips. How could he smile without revealing an ounce of teeth?

“It’s all right, Ronald,” she said looking to her friend with what she hoped was a reassuring countenance. It was uncanny how her former Potions Master could still throw her off-balance. “I won’t be long.”

Snape scoffed. “That would largely depend on how reasonable you prove to be and if my memory of your schooling years serves me well, that will hardly be the case.”

“This isn’t Hermione’s fault,” Ronald said, apparently deciding to be suicidal. “You were there too!”

“Yes and this conversation is my punishment,” Snape threw back, a particularly biting edge in his tone. “However, seeing how much of Miss Granger’s future rests on my cooperation, I would mind my tone and manners, Mr. Weasley.” It was his detention tone but the undercurrent of threat in it was downright lethal.

Hermione glanced at Ron just in time to see him blanch and lower his eyes. She recalled Mcgonagall’s hinting at marriage just a minutes ago and flinched. They didn’t expect her to marry Snape of all people over a perfectly innocent lapse in judgement, did they?

“We will be just inside, Mione,” Ron reassured her gently, shooting her a look that was meant to be encouraging and squeezing her upper arm briefly before turning to head back to the house. His head remained still turned towards her on the way to the house and he nearly tripped and fell.

Hermione spun to face Snape reluctantly. He was the picture of condescension, his eyes filled with triumphant malice. He had clearly seen Ronald stumble. Hero or not, Snape was still Snape.

“How touching,” he said in a voice indicating he had found the interaction between her and Ron anything but. “I trust you have seen today’s Daily Prophet.”

She nodded. “Sir, if I may explain….”

“You may not,” he cut her off and indicated that they should stroll ahead and away from the house into the forest.

Hermione fell into step beside him, as dread settled like stone in her gut. “I normally do not drink, Sir,” she tried again. “What transpired last night was a mistake on my part and shall not be repeated. I was distraught over failing to recover my parents yet again. I wished for a place where I would not be recognized for once and… well, you know what happened. Anyway, I wanted to thank for not leaving me there alone.”

“That was my mistake,” he spat.

“People usually say _you’re welcome_.”

He stopped abruptly and fixed her with a sharp glare. “You are decidedly not welcome. It was not me that abhorrent newspaperwoman followed. It is no matter. What is done is done. Have the particularities of our situation been explained to you?”

It was her turn to halt in her tracks. “You can’t possibly mean that we have to get married.”

Oh, she knew that look too. It was the classic Snape about to deliver an insult look. The corners of his lips even turned down in displeasure. This was going to be an especially nasty one. “I see you have left your insufferable know-it-all antics back at Hogwarts. How charmingly predictable! You pass through school with your hands perpetually raised but all your knowledge fails at the first brush with reality. Think, you silly girl, or am I asking too much of you?”

Hermione glared at him. “I see peace has really mellowed you out. I may be silly but still I won’t marry a man who speaks to me like that just to assuage the wizarding world’s medieval sensibilities.”

“Why did we ever waste seven years attempting to educate you, dunderheads? The wizarding world has its own distinct culture. In the muggle world, would you go to another country and behave in a manner which is offensive to the local population?”

Hermione gritted her teeth and shook her head no. “You can’t compare the two,” she protested. “They are different things.”

“How so? Does the muggle world not have its own laws and social conventions? Is is acceptable to break those without inquiring a form of ostracization? If you wish to live as a witch, you will have to conform to the norms and regulations of the wizarding world. Nobody, least of all me, is compelling you in any way. You may leave if and when you like. However, while you remain, you cannot conduct yourself as if you were expecting special privileges none of us has. Or do you believe perhaps that I am exempt as well? I cannot think of anything I would enjoy less than being married to you, but I chose to be a wizard and as such I am duty-bound to do right by the young former student who has been caught in a compromising position with me. Now you can pout and complain that I did not go down on one knee and offer you my mother’s ring or you can start behaving like an adult. Then and only then will we discuss the stipulations of our agreement.”

“This is me behaving like an adult. I’m not marrying you! And that’s final.” She turned to leave when he called after her.

“You misunderstood me, Miss Granger. What I am proposing is not marriage but merely a business transaction that we shall seek to annul after a predetermined period of time.”

Hermione paused. She saw Mcgonagall standing on the porch looking in their direction. They were a bit far for their voices to carry, however. Hermione hesitated. She had a sneaking suspicion that if she went to the house, she would be having the very same conversation with the Head of Gryffindor House. Hermione turned back to him slowly. Then she would right back negotiating with Snape.

“How long of a predetermined period of time?”

“Two or three years. That should suffice for talk of this matter to die down. Afterwards we shall separate quietly. In the meantime you may continue to liaise with whomever you wish. I care not what you do as long as I do not trip over you at every step. Also, should you fear any impropriety on my part, you should know that I have no desire to touch you. I would like you to afford me the same courtesy.”

Hermione frowned, her mind racing, going over possibilities that proved one more unsettling than the other. With one last glance at Mcgonagall by the house, she stepped back to his side. “I’ve just gotten a flat in wizarding London and I want to keep it.”

He shrugged. “As the last surviving member of the Prince family, I have recently come into that inheritance. As a result, I shall be moving the Prince Manor in the North. You may live wherever you wish. It makes no difference to me.”

Her fury melted like butter off a heated knife. His entire family on his mother’s side was dead. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Professor Sprout and Mcgonagall told me how your mother’s family had treated you but still… they were your only surviving relatives.”

His face was blank. “They were strangers. I assure you I require no condolences especially since their demise has proven to be my fortune.”

“You don’t really mean that.”

He snorted. “You were wrong about my allegiance during the war not my character. So, yes, Miss Granger, I assure you I mean every word of it. Now, if you have no more unnecessary sympathies to offer, might I inquire about the rest of your conditions?”

“I need time to think… not just about conditions but this entire situation too.”

“Take care not to strain yourself,” he said sarcastically.

“You annoyed Voldemort into trying to kill you, didn’t you?”

“If there was any justice in this world or any other, he would have succeeded. At least, then I would have been free of the lot of you.” There was darkness in both his voice and furrowed curve of his brows.

This was more than just a snide remark, she suspected. What it was precisely, she couldn’t tell, however.

In the ensuing silence he held out a hand to her. There was something in his palm.

“What is this?” she wanted to know, still mulling over his previous words.

“My mother’s ring. It is muggle so you should have to resize at one of their jewellers. Mind yourself with it. I shall want it back much as I have given it to you when this is over.”

She took the small velvet jewellery box from him. Upon closer inspection she realised it was not black, as she had initially thought, but dark blue. She opened it with no small amount of trepidation but also some curiosity. The ring was modest: a slim silver band and a tiny emerald-cut, dull-looking blue sapphire. She looked up just in time to see him dissolve into a cloud of tar and take off. He landed by the house next to where Mcgonagall was still standing.

Hermione snapped the ring box shut, put it in a pocket and hastened towards her former professors. They were not discussing this without her present. By the time she got there, however, he was gone, and Arthur and Molly were coming out of the house, worried expression plastered on their faces.

“What did he say?” Molly asked in a single breath before Hermione could.

Ron squeezed out by his mother shooting Hermione an apprehensively questioning look.

“To talk some sense into you,” Mcgonagall replied gazing at Hermione with an absurd amount of gravity in her eyes.

“Was that all?” Hermione asked.

Mcgonagall gave her a small smile. “I took the liberty of omitting the more affronting parts.”

Hermione sighed, the ring of Snape’s mother burning a hole in her jeans pocket.

# # #

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy showed on his doorstep at Spinner’s End with no warning. Severus had decided to move up North immediately after his wedding. He had not much to pack aside from the few of his possessions that had been salvaged from the wreck of Hogwarts and sent to him by a most obliging Minerva. His lack of opposition in preserving Hermione Granger’s reputation had caused the new Headmistress’ gratitude towards him to mount to downright unhealthy levels. She had offered him the Defence Against the Dark Arts post, now that Voldemort’s demise meant that the position was no longer jinxed, a place on the school board, letters of recommendation, should he want to apply for a job with the Ministry, her help if he wanted to set up a potion making business. Sadly, she hadn’t been his sole Gryffindor visitor.

Potter had come with warm meal made by Molly Weasley. They had sat in awkward silence for fifteen minutes or so, each staring at Severus’ dust-infested carpet. Then Potter had gotten up abruptly, muttered some inept apology and fled. He came back, though, with his Ginny Weasley, more food and a set of brand new mountain crystal potion vials. The three of them sat in silence for a while then his young visitors left. They fell into a routine after that. Severus would not admit to it under torture but this was one of the reasons he could almost regret moving to the Prince Manor. He gave Potter the exact location of the mansion during his last visit. Ginny Weasley actually smiled at him when he did. Potter just shuffled his feet. Then he and the Weasley girl left hand in hand.

“I heard condolences are in order,” Lucius said right from the doorway. He looked better than Severus had seen him during the last days of the war but was still rather gaunt and limping. “On your upcoming nuptials.”

Severus bristled and turned around without a word, leaving them to follow him in the sitting room, if they so wished.

“This place is actually worse than you described, Narcissa,” Lucius continued as he was coming in.

Narcissa was on her husband’s arm and, unlike him, she looked brilliantly. “Now, now, Lucius, I am sure this house will be greatly improved by a woman’s hand. But then again, considering the woman in question, I very much doubt it.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Severus asked snidely. He sank into his well-worn armchair without offering them a seat or a drink.

“We could not possibly leave you alone with the Gryffindors at your own wedding, Severus,” Lucius said sweetly. “We do owe you our son’s life and integrity of soul, after all. Draco sends you his regards. We have asked him to accompany us today but he insists you would not want to see anyone.”

“I am glad at least one of the dunderheads I had to teach possesses a modicum of sense,” he groused. “Unlike his parents,” he added with a pointed look. “As for my wedding, I would have thought that the lack of an invitation was enough of a hint that I do not want you there. This is an arrangement, nothing more, and I see no reason to turn it into the grand affair it is not.”

Narcissa slipped free of her husband’s arm and removed her flowing cape. She hesitated for a moment, standing there awkwardly with the garment in one hand until Severus indicated the back of his couch. The fire was roaring in the fireplace and the room was suitably warm given the the cold late autumn wind howling outside. Severus liked the warmth and had never understood the dark wizards’ obsession with cold.

“Many marriages are born out of arrangements amongst our kind,” Narcissa explained patiently. “Lucius and I have an arranged marriage. Contrary to the sentimental opinions of the muggle-born, that is no cause for grief. People who share the same beliefs and preoccupations make natural, good partners. It is true that you could have been more fortunate in your selection, however, mud… muggle in origin or not, you must marry the girl, given the compromising circumstances in which you have been discovered!”

“Yes, yes,” Lucius said irritably. “What were you thinking?”

Narcissa waved him off quickly. “It doesn’t matter now. We have details to consider. Have you drawn up a contract?”

Severus felt a muscle in his jaw clench to the point of discomfort. “Miss Granger prides herself on her integrity. She would not be concerned with issues as vulgar as those of fortune.”

Narcissa and Lucius exchanged a pointed look.

“A contract is not solely concerned with vulgar issues, as you put it,” she explained. “You can fill in all manner of stipulations and clauses. If your blushing bride to be resists, you can assure her it is for both your protection, which it is. We can lend you copies of the typical Malfoy and Black contracts as an example.”

Severus pulled to his feet. There was no end to his loathing of this whole thing. “May I offer either of you a beverage? I have to warn you, though. I only have tap water and tea.”

“Abstinence must seem like such a wonderful idea after your latest escapade,” Lucius said with a smirk.

Severus merely glared at him. He had never thought that marriage was on the cards for him so he had not concerned himself with the fine print on it. He hadn’t even considered his union with Granger further than doing what was expected of him under the circumstances. Whether he liked it or not, he needed help from the Malfoys.

“I would bet my entire family fortune without batting an eye that he never even touched that girl,” he heard Lucius say as he was making his way into the kitchen after his guests had told him they wanted a cup of tea.

He fished for two of the least chipped of his mother’s ruddy brown terracotta mugs and filled each with a helping of English breakfast. He managed to find sugar but no cream or lemon. Without Wormtail to serve him, his household had slid back into complete destitution.

Lucius and Narcissa stared suspiciously into their respective cups before she took a cautious sip. Lucius followed her cue with only marginal hesitation.

“You cannot let Molly Weasley dress your bride,” Narcissa opined.

“Get out!” That was his limit, the bridal gown.

“You know Rita Skeeter would find a way to be there,” Narcissa continued.

“Good,” he barked. “So I can use the killing curse on her and finally go to Azkaban. There are no visitors there.”

“Let me send Miss Granger a few samples, at least.” Narcissa sounded determined.

“I am sure the Gryffindor Princess would be ecstatic about taking fashion advice from the wife of a former Death Eater,” he bit out.

“I am reformed,” Lucius said mockingly.

“Is that why you two are here? You hope to appear repentant and reformed by association therefore removing some of the stain on the Malfoy name.”

“Narcissa and I have agreed that bimonthly visits should suffice,” Lucius replied, sounding wholly unapologetic.

Severus felt a smile tug at his lips. This was one of the many reasons he had always felt drawn to Slytherin House. Slytherins were anything but hypocritical. After dealing with the self-righteousness of Voldemort’s defeaters for months, it felt freeing to be around those from his own House again.

“Monthly visits,” he said firmly. “No obligation for me to return them and no talk of ceremonial garb. Also from now on you will have to come to the Prince Manor. I am moving to the North the day after the wedding.”

Lucius breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Merlin! One time in this house is one time too many.”

# # #

_Now_

She thought that the little sprout might be a tulip, though its stem was hard like that of a young tree. It was definitely dying, both of its leaves fallen to the ground, almost completely dried out. She took a glass from the cottage filled with memories of her parents she had built, and poured water on the shrinking patch of cracked ground. The lilies had gotten even closer. They seemed taller, too, and still shockingly beautiful. She had been avoiding that portion of her mind since that dream of Severus as a Dark Lord. At least, consciously, she had been trying to stay away but her dreams took her back there almost without fail.

That dream had rattled her and for the umpteenth time she wondered why she was not letting her mental bond with Severus die. From the few books she had managed to find on Legilimency and Occlumency, she had understood that unless maintained on both sides, the link was for all purposes inert. She had been surprised just how little it had been written on my mind magic and she had begun to comprehend that many were unsettled by its implications. She had to wonder if that was how the fascination with Dark Magic usually started. One looked in dark corners one time too many. She knew she should stop yet she kept on gliding on the slippery slope.

A memory of touching live current flitted through her. That was how sticking one’s hand in a nuclear reactor had to feel like. His mind was simply amazing. The mind that had fooled Voldemort could be no less, after all. There was the cold, impossibly calculated and controlled intellect and then there was the depth of feeling that had conjured the spell-binding imagery he had left behind in her head. It was hard to believe that beneath Severus Snape’s sneering exterior beat such a sensitive heart but she was standing amid the living proof of it.

It was the heart of a man who had gone to war for the woman he loved. A woman with whom he had never even been together. Hermione would bet good money they had never even kissed. And yet his love for her had not abated for decades, had triumphed over death and evil and ended up crushing Voldemort himself. Hermione had been surrounded by warm, loving people all her life. She had been an eye-witness to her parents’ happy marriage. Yet she had to wonder if any of them could be capable of such devotion. Could she?

_So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,_ she murmured. Her parents had practically raised her on Shakespeare so she knew his sonnets and entire chunks of his plays by heart. _So long lives this, and this gives life to thee._

She thought back to the doe patronus she had seen in Severus’ memories as revealed by Harry at his trial. Even Dumbledore, for all the life experience that had come with his advanced age, had been astonished. To Dumbledore’s amazement, Severus had answered with that one fraught word.

_Always._

# # #

Cagey failed to show up as she cautiously made her way into Prince Manor. Her heart was thumping loud in her ears and her palms had gone clammy. She couldn’t fathom how Snape had managed to return to Voldemort every time fully knowing he was betraying his supposed master to his face. Hermione was a nervous wreck. Spying was not the Gryffindor way. Charging head-first into battle was.

A bouncy rattling of instruments floated to her ears from the West Wing. She frowned. She had never heard Severus listening to music. She followed the sound to a small drawing room that she thought to possess a bit of a Jane Austen style charm. The music grew more distressing with each step she took as the melancholic whine of violins mixed with an undercurrent that resembled a winter storm. There were pops and cracks in the sounds. It was a record player. As far as she knew, Severus avoided that room possibly because the pastel flower wallpaper and the delicate walnut furniture made it too frilly for his taste or maybe because it had an entire wall of windows that flooded it with light for most of the day.

When she pushed the door opened, she found not Severus but a strange woman sitting in one of the pale green upholstered hackney chairs in the room. The heavy curtains were all drawn.

_I hope this means he’s having an affair,_ she thought.

The woman raised her head from the thick tome in her lap. “Good afternoon,” she said politely. She had an accent. It resembled that of Fleur a bit but it was still different somehow. “You must be Mrs. Prince.” She left her book on the chair behind her as she got up quickly and moved with all the grace of a ballerina to greet Hermione. “I am Delphine Faust. Thank you for allowing me into your lovely home.”

Hermione stuck out her hand. “Hermione Granger… erm, Prince. Nice to meet you.”

Delphine’s hand was cool to the touch, her nails long and sharp like claws. Hermione studied her face. She looked a bit like Severus: she had the same unnaturally pale skin, deep shadows around her eyes and seemed gaunt to the point of emaciation. But her hair, braided like a crown around her face, was ashen blonde and her eyes were of a blue so light they appeared to be silver. Though she was aware that he was not supposed to have any living relatives, Hermione still hoped that Delphine was a long lost cousin.

Hermione slid to the flowery two-seater next to Delphine’s chair while the other woman prattled about how rich in history the mansion was. “Has Cagey been taking good care of you?” she asked after a while.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” Delphine rushed to say. She was smiling and as she did, Hermione noticed the pearly tips of sharp-looking fangs peeking from beneath her thin, discoloured lips. “He has been most obliging.”

_Why couldn’t he have an affair like a normal man?,_ Hermione thought. She firmly believed Severus was innocent of plotting to become the next Dark Lord. That was mainly why she had agreed to spy on him, knowing anyone else looking into this might be too biased against him. However, given his recent trip to Europe and Voldemort’s documented interest in allying himself with vampires, this did not look good.

“I must confess I find your relationship with house elves most unusual. There are several of them living with me and my mother but it is a vastly different arrangement,” Delphine drawled on.

She was clearly behaving as though she expected Hermione to know that and why she was here. It gave Hermione no cause to question her directly.

“Cagey is free to leave if he wishes,” Hermione said, marvelling at her own need to defend Severus who despised the elf but wasn’t keeping him as a slave, either. “Actually, I believe my husband would prefer it if he did but Cagey has been in this house for centuries. It is all he has. Turning him away would be cruel.”

Delphine looked appalled. “Oh, you must have misunderstood me, Milady. I was not judging how you and your husband manage your household. However, I am inquisitive by nature. You see, I am a sort of historian.”

Hermione laughed. “There is no need for you to call me Milady. Hermione will do.”

“Are you a scientist like Lord Prince, Hermione?”

“I wouldn’t call Severus a scientist.”

“A potioneer is in many ways a chemist and that is a scientist,” Delphine said with utmost severity.

Hermione decided against contradicting her. She doubted that was the correct way to wring information out of the woman. “I work for the Ministry of Magic, the Department for Magical Law Enforcement, and I also act as an advisor to the Minister on occasion.”

Delphine made a face like she had just swallowed something unpleasant. “I see,” she said carefully. “I am sure it is a most rewarding position.” The uneven mix of agitation and disdain in her voice indicated she believed nothing of the sort. “I have taken enough of your time, Hermione, in addition to imposing on your hospitality. As I am certain you have matters to attend to, I would like to retire to my room now.”

Hermione felt compelled to stand as well. “It was nice meeting you.”

Delphine fled so fast that had left her book behind. Hermione went to inspect it. It was a muggle book on physics: an introduction into the theory concerning the existence of multiple dimensions. She flipped through it. There were handwritten notes in the margin comparing the information in the book with knowledge from the wizarding world. She recognized Snape’s neat penman-shift. Apparently Delphine was right. He was a kind of scientist. This was heavy-duty stuff, both the Muggle and Wizardkind aspects of it, and not only did he have a firm grasp on it but he was able to draw comparisons between the two. It occurred to her that, had Snape lived in the muggle world, he would be having two or three Nobel Prizes by now.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Shakespeare quote is from Sonnet 18. 
> 
> In keeping with the naming traditions of the Potterverse:  
> Delphine comes comes from the Latin name of a flower called larkspur that is highly poisonous.  
> Faust is the titular character of a play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about a man who sold his soul to the Devil.  
> Blut (German) = blood  
> Wilhelmina comes from the Dracula novel character, Mina.


	12. The Man Who Sold The World

_Now_

Hermione parted the drapes before the closest window with an unspoken spell then moved closer to the pale November sunlight streaming through the glass. The muggle physics book in her hands, she flipped through the pages, paying attention to Snape’s notes.

… _Muggle science posits_ _that there are_ _an infinite number of parallel universes.… unprovable theory…. Is the existence of the wizarding world not proof that there are at least two alternative universes?…_

She lifted her head, thinking. That was a good question and she couldn’t find fault with his reasoning. There was ample speculation on how one could open a gateway to another universe, which he considered possible much in the same way contact between the Muggle and the wizarding world could be achieved.

… _ancient and extremely dark magic much like that required to create horcruxes…. D_ _umbledore’s_ _research into Voldemort’s endeavours at Hogwarts s_ _howed_ _no evidence he could have discovered anything of the kind at the school…. There are ten mostly unaccounted for years between the Dark Lord’s leaving his position at Borgin and Burkes and his return to gather followers for what would become the First Wizarding War…. There is no telling what he could have learnt in that decade…._

So far it seemed that Snape was genuinely investigating what he believed to be an incursion from another world into the Muggle world. However, Delphine’s hasty exit and her leaving the book behind seemed contrived, as if it had been staged. She noted one of the Manor’s spotted owl take flight towards the setting sun.

Hermione pulled out her wand, opened the window and pulled the owl back as if by an invisible string. The tiny note it carried was written in a beautifully calligraphic manner reminiscent of a much embellished form of the Gothic style. It had the disadvantage of being less than easy to decipher but Hermione managed. The ink that had been used was bright red. She could see why Snape would get along with vampires: they apparently shared his flair for the dramatic. She began to read.

_Dear Sir,_

_I would like to apologise if I seem f_ _orward_ _, however I must express my concern that you have not_ _communicated_ _my Mother that your wife is employed by the British Ministry of Magic. By no means do I wish to impugn your Lady’s character, however, in the light of our shared secret, you will forgive me if I am concerned. Many of your kind have always regarded us with suspicion. How are they to react if we are to be found out?_ _I am certain, though, that you trust your wife so no more of this will be spoken by me. Again I wish to convey my regrets and mortification that such a subject must be broached to begin with._

_Yours faithfully,_

_Delphine Faust_

Hermione crumpled the scrap of parchment between her fingers without meaning to. This looked bad, no matter how you sliced it. She looked at the sun that was just starting to dip beneath the horizon. Delphine was right about one thing: vampires were largely scorned and hated amongst the Wizardkind, often labelled as parasites and were the occasional target of smear campaigns in the press. Many believed that the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans were too lenient when it came to vampires and the Society for the Tolerance of Vampires faced a constant uphill battle with their advocacy. Hermione knew that because she had looked into the matter a little. Once she was done with the reform of Azkaban, the new legislation for werewolves and house elves, she intended to start on vampires and giants next.

It was also true, however, that in the past Voldemort had profited from the abominable treatment of non-wizard beings by the wizards and witches, using this persecution as grounds for his recruitment of them. It had helped build him an army. As a former Death Eater, Severus was all too aware of that. Perhaps he had even participated in these negotiations. Such much of his role within Voldemort’s circle prior to his defection remained unknown.

She used her wand to smooth out the message, gave it back to the owl and sent it on its way. The sun had almost set by then. When its light vanished entirely, Delphine would be back to full strength and then Hermione would be trapped in the Manor with a vampire who was already highly suspicious of her. She had no delusions about receiving any help from Cagey or the Manor’s prejudiced ghosts and portraits. Besides, she needed more intelligence. If he wasn’t here, she knew where Severus would most likely be.

“Accio,” she said quietly accompanying the word with a quick flick of her wand.

A moment later a ratty, dust-covered broom burst through the door. There were brooms of various qualities all over the Manor but since he could fly without one, Severus ignored them. Hermione hopped on, regretting a little the spots she would get on her jeans, and flew off. Ancient wards prevented apparating from inside the house and the broom beat descending down the ivy littering the wall.

# # #

The poorest people Hermione knew were the Weasleys. She was aware that by the wizarding world’s standards the Weasley family was badly off but it had never meant anything to her. They had a charming house they filled with love and joy, plentiful food and had always managed to provided for their seven children’s schooling necessities. Who cared if they had second-hand books and hand-me-down robes? The likes of Malfoy, that was who, so nobody decent.

Muggle world poverty had always been an abstract to her, something she had known it existed just like she knew there many galaxies in the universe. She had never encountered it first-hand. Her family had not been rich but they had never wanted for anything, either. She had grown up in a comfortable home in a nice, middle-class neighbourhood in the greater London area. Her parents had never had to worry about money. Bills were paid in time, food was no an issue and they could afford lovely holidays and to provide Hermione with everything she wanted within reason. They had wished her to be happy not spoiled.

She had never been to Cokeworth before. She and Severus had done an excellent job avoiding each other head of their wedding. The day after he had moved to Prince Manor. She had also missed on accompanying her friends, Minerva and Professor Slughorn to visit Snape after he had escaped from St. Mungo’s on account on returning from a wild goose chase after her parents in Canada. So this was her first time at Spinner’s End and she could only conclude that Harry’s description, although heart-rendering, pale in comparison to the reality. She hadn’t even thought such rows of old-time terrace houses were still in existence, imaging all to be renovated and gentrified.

The dying, formerly industrial small town of Cokeworth in the Midlands had been left behind, however. Spinner’s End lay as living proof of that, its houses abandoned by inhabitants who had undoubtedly fled in search of a better life elsewhere. All but one. The last house had no boarded windows, though, by looking at its worn, dirt-streaked brick walls, one would have been hard pressed to assume that somebody still lived there.

The tower of what seemed like a disused mine lorded over the horizon and Hermione had to wonder if it had been still in operation back when Severus had been a child, if his father had worked there perhaps. The picture of Snape in the Muddle world, with his mismatched, worse for the wear clothes from the memories he had given Harry started to make a lot more sense to her. She had realised he had been poor but she had always imagined something along Weasley poor. The Weasleys, however, were well-off by the standards of this place. This looked like something out of a Dickens novel. This was a slum in the true sense of the word. She found herself hoping that his parents had taken excellent care of him and showered him with love to make up for all this.

Hermione knocked but reluctantly, almost afraid of what she would find inside. The man who opened the door was no small boy with greasy hair and ill-sorted clothes but the man she had come to know: the overgrown bat with sharp obsidian eyes and a slight, sardonic curve of his lips. Quite absurdly Hermione wondered if there was a chance of talking him into moving with her. She had a spare room and her flat was nice and comfortable. She had always thought it wasn’t much but compared to this, it was a palace.

She tried smiling at him, which caused one of his brows to raise suspiciously. Still she admitted her in, ushering her into a sitting room with all the cosiness of a padded cell. The same sense of decay that had overrun the Prince Manor resided within Snape’s childhood home. At least, this house wasn’t haunted or so she hoped, though she knew that not all ghosts were supernatural in nature. Despite the bleakness, the walls were littered with books which drew her in like a magnetic.

“What can I do for you, Hermione?” he asked sarcastically, interrupting her gawking at his tomes.

She turned towards him and saw that the small table next to a manky, old armchair held a stack of parchments, quill and ink, several books and a half drunken glass of wine. The glass wasn’t half bad, though the material had gone milky from repeated washings and the fake gold rim was started to chip and fade.

“Why, yes, a glass of wine would be good,” she said.

“I thought we had both learned never to drink together.”

“Will we have to get married a second time, you think?”

His lips twitched in what could almost be a smile. “Very well.”

She took a quick peek at the books on the table while he disappeared into the kitchen. Not all of them were in English but those that were referred to Dark Magic. The one on top was the thickest of them all, its cover made of burgundy, wondrously patinaed leather. The golden writing on the cover looked strikingly like Delphine’s flourishing scrawl, only it was even more elaborate, which made the letters almost impossible to read. The language seemed to be a kind of Latin but she couldn’t be sure. She resisted the urge to bury her nose in the tome. She bet it smelled amazing. It certainly looked like it did.

“Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong once more, Granger? How astonishingly little you have grown since school.”

His low cadence drawl almost made her jump out of her skin. Absorbed by the lovely book as she had been, she had failed to notice his return. Clearly spying wasn’t for her.

He stood in the doorway, holding her glass of wine, staring at her with a darkly inquisitive gaze that was both mesmerizing and terrifying. They were oddly beautiful, his eyes, uncommonly black and utterly unique. How strange that she had not noted that before.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” What was with the odd squeak to her voice? “It’s just… this is the most beautiful book I have ever seen,” she added quickly and truthfully. It made her angry that the wizarding world’s prejudice had robbed them and by extension, her of more in-depth knowledge of the vampire culture

He came to stand very close to her, their bodies all but touching, his brow furrowed, his expression one of sneering intimidation, his dark eyes still holding her in their trance. It was the pose that had made him the terror of Hogwarts but Hermione had never truly feared him, too busy being disappointed that she could never seem to earn his approval, no matter how hard she had worked for it. She had known him to be brilliant even then and had yearned for his rarely doled appreciation. Instead he had always appeared to find her _silly_ or downright _stupid._ Those had been the words that had cut. The _know-it-all_ had never bothered her, it had sounded like a compliment.

Without the added weight of seeking his academic favour, she was free to discover a new quality to his autocratic antics. The fact that they tended to spark a heady, dark kind of electricity budding between them.

He handed her the glass without a word and she took it with a soft-spoken _thank you_. His scowl deepened and he only nodded in reply. Then he withdrew leaving her suddenly chilled. She took a sip of her wine to warm herself. It was thick and sweet to the taste, feeling like oaky velvet on her tongue.

“Mmm… it’s good.”

He waved a dismissive hand as he sat himself back in the armchair. There was a feline grace to the way he moved, like a panther on the prowl. “Of course. It is elf-made wine, after all. Scores of graduating Slytherins have given me bottle after bottle of it when they graduated, most likely at a loss as to what else to buy me. It has accumulated over the years.”

She drank some more and sat herself on the couch. It was lumpy and she shifted a little to find a better position. “What language is that? Latin?” she asked, her eyes returning to the ruddy tome that had captured her imagination. “A close approximation of it, yes. What has the Minister had to say about the information I brought to you?”

There was a faint note of disdain in the way he had uttered Kingsley’s title.

She sipped at her wine to centre herself before she answered him. “He sent the Aurors to investigate. They found no evidence corroborating your claims.”

“Of course not.” He didn’t sound surprised.

“What is that supposed to mean?” It had come out far more defensive than she had intended. To cover for it she took another swig of her drink.

“Aurors are for all intents and purposes magical detectives,” he explained patiently. “Wizards and witches think alongside complicated patterns. It is the main reason why were are not currently living through Voldemort’s reign of terror. If only it had occurred to him to suffocate Potter or drown him in the bathtub as a baby, neither of us will be sitting here.”

She blinked at him, not sure she had heard him right but then she figured that what he had said make a certain amount of sense. “We alter reality with a word and a flick of our wrist. It’s only natural for us to think in images and colours. A kind of mental synesthesia.”

He nodded and grabbed his glass to taste as his wine too. The flames in the fire place cast an orange glow onto his long, pale fingers wrapped around the glass stem. He had elegantly drawn, deft looking hands.

“You are muggle born,” he said after a brief pause. “If you had never had magic, what would think when you saw a upturned grave with deep gashes scratched into the ground as if the corpse had fought its way out?”

“That I’m in a zombie film,” she replied and taking a cue from him, drank again. As soon as the wine slid down her neck, it hit her. “For a Muggle, this would be highly unusual but not for an Auror. An Auror would investigate it as any other event in the wizarding world, by looking for a magical cause. They went at it backwards. They should have approached it from a Muggle point of view. Kingsley gave the job to the wrong department. He should have appointed someone from the Muggle Liaison Office.”

He inclined his head to confirm her words, turning eyes that burned with an inner black fire on her. “What else did Kingsley say?”

“That you went to Florence, to consult the Prince family’s Dark Arts library and then to the Black Forest to visit an influential vampiress,” the words were out of her mouth before she could think to halt them and they continued spilling as if independent from her will. “He fears you might be recruiting vampires to support your rise as the next Dark Lord…. You gave me Veritaserum….” She made to draw her wand but he was faster.

“Expelliarmus!”

The wand flew from her hand while her glass dropped from her nerveless fingers, shattering upon impact. The sound was loud as a gunshot in the suddenly quiet room. Hermione’s heart started to pound. She gritted her teeth before she could tell him more. He peeled to his feet slowly and with deft elegance. His pace was sedate as he strolled to her. She tried to get up and retrieve her wand but her body would not obey, remaining immobilised on the couch. Veritaserum was not all he had given her. His form cast a dark shadow over her. She stared defiantly into his hooded eyes. Not a single muscle moved on his face. His wand hand came up, the tip of the rod pressing gently into the side of her neck.

“What else did Kingsley say?” he asked slowly. “What does he know about the vampires?”

She shook her head, fighting the urge rising within her dizzingly fast. She thought quickly, remembering from his own words on the night their mental bond had been created and the books she had read that Occlumency could be used to counter the effect of the Veritaserum. She concentrated and withdrew into her mind. She had been working a bit on erecting walls based on her research. At the time it had seemed as yet another useful ability she sought to master. She had never imagined she would have to utilize it against him. She picked a set of childhood memories and pushed them to the forefront of her mind, hiding behind them, momentarily stifling the impulse to tell him everything.

“If I have to force my way into your mind, it could become unpleasant.” His voice boomed from above her mental walls, cavernous and deep.

She wanted to explained that, despite how suspicious the circumstances were, she still believed in his innocence, unable to accept that the man who had sacrificed so much during the war could do it only to turn around and throw the world into a nightmare much like the one he had helped end. However, she knew that the second she would open her mouth, she would be telling him something entirely different.

“Have it your way then! Legilimens.”

The nuclear powerhouse of his mind tore through her walls. She thought back, struggling against him, but he parried every blow with dexterous ease, wrenching memory after memory from her barriers until he found her. He came at her much like in her dream, dark and majestic and larger than life. Cold sweat bloomed on her nape and she broke into a run. She didn’t want to do this but it was her only recourse. She sprinted towards the world she had constructed out of the imagery he had planted in her mind. She ran through the spectacular field still littered with all those fantastic flowers. Her heart beat a relentless staccato into her ears. She tried to make it for the cottage but an invisible force pulled her back. Once more she fought. A piercing pain entered her skull and she fell to the ground, clutching her temples.

The laughter seemed to burst from the azure skies above like thunder. She rolled on the ground, amid the soft grass and the flagrant flowers, tears streaming down her face.

“No… no! Make it stop.”

He was suddenly besides her. “I am not doing anything, Hermione. You are. I could not even find you until I heard you scream.”

She felt the tip of the blade carve into her arm as the blood welled and flowed. _Mudblood…!_

“No, not you too. Stop… please….”

A warm palm came to rest on her forehead. He was suddenly there with her as Bellatrix sliced into her while the tremors of the Cruciatus still shook her. He got between them and wrapped the black tails of his cape around her, wrenching her from Bellatrix and away. She had a vague feeling of falling and then she was on grass again but the landscape was vastly different. It smelled foul and she recognized the scent. It was the same one wafting through Spinner’s End. Nearby a river murmured sweetly. She saw a girl with hair like the flame, sunlight gliding on it. A small flower was growing in her palm and the dark-haired, sad looking boy who was with her smiled.

Lily! They were in his mind. She had taken her from her flashback and into a comforting memory of his own. A calming sensation washed over her, its source foreign. He was attempting to use his Legilimency abilities to soothe her. She turned her face into his chest. He smelled like fresh herbs and the touch of ozone in the air just before a summer storm. She started to sob, clinging onto him for dear life. His arms came to wrap around her slightly, his grip on her hesitant and loose, as his cape enveloped as if in the black wings of a giant bat.

A moment late she was back on the couch, sniffling. She had been crying in reality too. He hovered over her, a look of concern on his face. He pressed the cool rim of a vial to her lips.

“Drink. It’s the antidote to the paralysing potion I slipped you.”

She drank. It taste awful but an instant later she could feel her muscle unclench. She instinctively flinched away from him. His expression crumpled and he immediately drew back and away from her.

“Hermione… I do not… I am not going to hit you!”

She blinked. What was he on about? Of course she didn’t think he was going to hit her. His press into her mind had been unpleasant, just like he had warned, but from what Harry had told her and Ron about his Occlumency lessons, this couldn’t have been worse than what he had put her friend through in order to teach him how to shield from Voldemort. If he had truly not caused her the flashback….

He was suddenly agitated, his expression wild, a few locks of his hair having fallen into his face. “You must believe me… I didn’t know what Bellatrix had done to you…. It was never my intention.”

Something was terribly wrong. His eyes were fervent, imploring. His reaction was frightening her more than the fact that he had drugged her. He paced to where he had flung her wand, grasped it and came back to press it into her hand. “In order to cast Sectumsempra, you have to make a slashing motion with your hand as if you were cutting someone with a knife.”

He wasn’t suggesting she hurt him in that manner, was he?

“Are you quite mad?” she asked.

He lowered his head, more of his hair falling over his face, looking strangely defeated. His fists were clenched tightly at his sides. She was going to kill Kingsley, she decided. If the man before her was the next Dark Lord, then she was the goblin princess.

“Did you cause me to have that flashback?” she asked, though she was positive he hadn’t. Still she wanted to hear it from him.

“No,” he answered softly, the two letters brimming with pain.

Had she hurt in some fashion when she had fought against his intrusion into her mind?

He turned away from her, his moves careful, as if she were some feral beast he was trying not to provoke. Hermione felt like she could get whiplash from the role reversal. He went to the fireplace and jabbed the poker into the dying flames, though he could have easily taken care of it with magic. His wand was nowhere to be seen, however.

“My father hit my mother,” he said all of the sudden.

The bottom of Hermione’s stomach dropped. The flimsy, hopeful fantasy of him having a happy family life despite the deprivation in which he had grown up pulverized. _That_ hadn’t been in the memories he had shared with Harry, not having anything to do with Lily or the war.

“I used to cower in my room listening to them scream knowing where it would inevitably lead. Then the crash came and she would plead with tears in her voice. If he stopped yelling, that was how I knew he… he…. I would never hit you, Hermione!”

She got up without a word and padded to where he stood, putting her own wand away as she did. She patted his arm uncertainly. “I know,” she said firmly.

He turned his face to her again. He looked younger somehow and lost, startlingly vulnerable. She was reminded that, despite their age gap, he wasn’t even forty yet. However, he had been through more than some people experienced in a lifetime. She squeezed his arm above his elbow and slid closer to use her free hand to brush the hair from his eyes. She wanted to comfort him as he had by bringing her into his mind. She stroked at his cheek. He froze, his glassy eyes fixed on her. His hand came out of nowhere to grasp as her wrist, stilling her. Yet his grip was shaky.

“He beat you too, didn’t he?” she asked. She had been reading a fair amount of psychology lately while trying to deal with her PTSD and she had read somewhere that abusive husbands were often likely to turn on their children as well.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The haunted look on his face did it for him.

“Shacklebolt asked you to spy on me, didn’t he?” he said dryly, side-stepping her in order to escape her touch.

“You saw…?”

“I saw nothing but I was a spy myself or don’t you remember? I suspected you the moment Delphine’s note arrived. You read it as well, did you not? Miss Faust must have sensed something either in your smell or in the beating of your heart. Then when you arrived here, you paid no heed to the three Dark Curios on my mantelpiece. To you of all people they should have been irresistible.”

“Never try to con a conman,” she muttered under her breath. “If you already knew that the Minister wanted me to spy on you, why did you dose me?”

He flicked the hair off his face with a single, curt gesture. His expression became stuttered again. The moment of vulnerability had passed.

“The vampires,” she realised. “You found out something about them, something that could set the wizarding world on them. You are protecting them like you did with us at Hogwarts. Always the protector, no matter the personal cost.”

She clamped a hand over her lips before she could say more. She was still under the influence of the Veritaserum and it was not wise to run her mouth. Truth be told, she was in awe of him. She couldn’t imagine he had had much to do with vampires before recently yet he was already protective of them. How badly they had all misjudged this strange, tormented, darkly wonderful man!

“I am going to tell Kingsley you are having an affair with Delphine Faust. It’s probably the safest option just now. I probably cannot insist that you are right about the threat to the Muggle world without raising his suspicions about the part the vampires must be playing in all this.”

He studied her face carefully, most likely calculating if she was still under the influence of the Veritaserum and hence telling the truth. “Why would you do that?”

She pulled her fledging Occlumency walls up immediately. Something had bubbled to the surface of her mind and she fought to push it down. “Because the Muggle word and with it my parents are trapped in a horror film and you are the only one doing something about it.”

It was a truth but it wasn’t the only one.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I'll answer your lovely comments soon. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. You rock!


	13. Wedding Jitters

_A year earlier_

The few times Severus Snape had considered marriage had been as a teenager before that one word had cost him Lily. In flights of fancy he later felt ashamed of, he had dared imagine the look on her face on their wedding day, the love in her eyes and the warmth of her smile. Those rare moments had been the only time where the mere notion of nuptials hadn’t horrified him. Lying in bed in the early hours of the morning on his wedding day, he thought back to the sounds of marriage he had grown up with in this very house: screaming, crying and dull impact of fists on soft flesh.

He got up, placing his bare feet on the cold floor. His stomach was in knots. He cursed his own stupidity that had trapped him in this situation with Hermione Grange of all people. He had been almost free of these people yet a single mistake had dragged him back into Harry Potter’s detested orbit and amid his scattered-brained friends. But wasn’t that his lot in life? To commit a single error and then spend decades paying for it.

Padding down the wobbly staircase gingerly, he headed into the bathroom first and, since his never renovated bathroom had no shower, turn on the tap to fill the tub with water he decided to warm up with a spell. The decrepit boiler took forever to do it normally. As the tub filled, he retreated to the kitchen to take a tonic potion and put on for coffee.

He hadn’t slept at all the previous night and when he returned to the bathroom and looked into the tiny mirror with two cracked corners, he saw the evidence of his insomnia plastered all over his face. Dark shadows bloomed beneath his eyes and worsened his gaunt appearance that betrayed his incomplete recovery. His cheek were all but hollowed out and his lips barely had a drop of colour in them. He removed his nightwear and caught a glimpse of his body, all protruding bones and scarred, sallow skin. He was suddenly, irrationally relieved there would be no wedding night. He couldn’t imagine inflicting himself upon any woman, not even one who irritated him as much as Hermione Granger.

Hermione Granger. Merlin’s beard! The insufferable know-it-all former student of his who was only 19 years old. Practically a child bride. Just when he thought his life couldn’t possibly get more topsy-turvy, fate proved him wrong. He lathered himself in soap suds, scrubbing at his skin without mercy. Nagini’s bite still ached but he welcomed. This was wrong. It was all wrong.

He thought of that silly girl who was to become his wife in a manner of hours and his stomach cramped further. Severus had confiscated enough romance novels and teen magazines, both wizarding and Muggle, at Hogwarts to know what young girls expected of their wedding day and prospective groom. It was all codswallop, of course, and over time he had seen and heard of enough of the harshly mundane nature of actual marriage smashing those goofy, youthful dreams into nothingness. Though, even he wasn’t sufficiently cruel to wish what was about to happen on a former student, Gryffindor or not, Hermione Granger or anybody else. It was all for show, of course, and their marriage did have an expiration date but still for as long as she lived, Hermione Granger would have the memory of promising to be Severus Snape’s wife at the tender age of nineteen.

It wasn’t all wrong, he realized, as he dressed in his best set of robes. He was the one who was wrong. He regretted brushing off Narcissa’s insistence that she helped him get something other than black to wear, as absurd as the suggestion had been when she had badgered him about it. He remembered all the less than flattering names he had been called at Hogwarts. Bat of the Dungeon. Greasy git. His hair wasn’t greasy fresh off a bath but no amount of water could shrink his nose, bring colour to his cheeks or harmonize his features.

No, he was the one who was wrong. Minerva and her merry band of students, Molly and Arthur Weasley and even Slughorn had gone out of their way to include him in their victors’ party but he didn’t belong with them. He had no friendly remarks or kind words or warmth to impart. Company had been an imposition ever since falling out with Lily. He couldn’t figure out how blend in with other people. The boy raised between Tobias Snape’s blow and yells and his mother’s long, grim silences and secretive lessons in magic still failed to play well with others. He had been taught from an early age to hide: to hide his magic from the world, to hide that his mother was nurturing his abilities from his father, to hide his bruises at school, to hide his tears so as not to give the Marauders additional satisfaction. That was what had attracted him to Occlumency in the first place. It had been useful to him as a spy but now that he had outlived his usefulness, what could there be left for him?

The cheerful chatter animating the Burrow died out the instant he walked in. He could feel his scowl deepen at the long looks he received. Lucius and Narcissa were at his side at once.

“As appropriate as the funeral apparel might be in this situation,” Lucius hissed in his ear. “I doubt it would serve you well to frighten your bride away, especially given the night you have ahead of you.”

Draco shot his father a dirty look. “It’s his wedding, Father. He can wear whatever he wishes.”

Severus had been sensing a mounting tension between Lucius and Draco of late. Draco was struggling to emancipate from his father’s domineering shadow that had cast him on Voldemort’s side before he could make any sort of educated choice. Severus then reminded himself that Draco was no longer his student, either, so he didn’t have to worry about him any more.

Minerva hastened towards them, wedging herself between Severus and Lucius. Her haughty look indicated that she was uncharacteristically spoiling for a quarrel. The Malfoys’ ploy to regain entrance into polite society through Severus seemed to be working. Obviously nobody wanted them here but they tolerated them for his sake.

“Severus,” Minerva said, pushing lightly on his elbow in order to stir him away from the Malfoys.

Severus’ back locked at the touch but the gesture served its purpose. He moved away from Draco’s family if only to get away from Minerva’s questing hand.

“I have a present of sorts for you,” Minerva said. “When we cleaned Hogwarts castle for rebuilding we came across something where the Room of Requirement used to stand. When the fire consumed it, a portion of the ceiling collapsed and trapped several objects underneath. The spells woven into the walls protected them from the flames. This was found amid the items retrieved intact.” She handed him a snot-stained, worse for the wear copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_ by Libatius Borage. The fire had touched its upturned corners but other than that, it was intact. “Harry assures me it belongs to you,” she continued. “He thinks the notes you made are extremely valuable and that you should impress upon the Ministry to publish your annotated version. He insists the students would find it much more useful than the old edition.”

“I have no more interest in returning to teaching than I first did in embarking upon such a career,” he said dryly but still took the book from her. “What and how Hogwarts students learn is, thankfully, no longer my concern.”

She sighed looking at the autumn signs stretching outside the window. “May I advice that you do not decide so hastily, Severus? I realise you have come into a considerable fortune but how long would you be satisfied hiding from the world at the Prince Manor with nobody but your ancestors’ bitter ghosts for company?”

“I am to gain a wife today,” he said sarcastically. “I would not be completely alone.” He fully expected Hermione never to come to the Manor but he still hoped to throw Minerva off this way.

“I am gaining on in years,” Minerva said as if she hadn’t heard him. “This latest war, in particular, has aged me a few decades, I feel. I should like to retire if not soon then in the not so distant future.”

“I doubt my tenure as Headmaster is fondly remembered at Hogwarts,” he grumbled.

“Ah, but those were extraneous circumstances, Severus. Looking back now, I realise you have done your utmost to protect the students. There is a new age dawning on the Wizardkind, Severus, and I should think you would like to play some part in shaping it.”

The snide remark was on the tip of his tongue but the awed silence had fell upon the place forced him to turn away from the window. Molly Weasley had come in with his bride. Hermione Granger actually wore robes: a cream-coloured set with an ample, ruched skirt covered in a dusty pink and bright orange flower pattern that also extended to the mesh sleeves. Her usually unruly hair was piled up at her nape, only a few curly strands escaping to her neck. Molly was still fiddling with those. He suspected that the robes were hers too, from her own wedding.

She was beautiful. He would have had to be blind not to notice. She smiled at the Weasleys and at the Potter who clustered around her and there was genuine warmth in it. Then her eyes fell upon him and her grin vanished, her expression crumpling. For one horrible moment he thought she might cry but Molly Weasley put an arm around her slim shoulders and pulled her to her chest. He expelled a hefty breath he had no idea he had been holding, grateful to Arthur Weasley’s wife for the first time in his life.

_Severus Snape, depressing women since his fifth year at Hogwarts_ , he thought bitterly.

# # #

_Now_

Once he was done poking at the fire, Severus turned and cleaned the mess she had made when she had dropped her wine glass with a quick flicker of his wand.

“Apparently there are far more idiots amid the Wizardkind than even I could have imagined,” he grumbled as he worked. “I failed to persuade 11-year olds to focus during my Potions classes. How do they imagine I could convince anyone to help me take over the world? People have been falling all over themselves to please Voldemort. Surely some have done it out of fear but more often than not he had an almost magnetic quality to him.” He lowered his wand almost absently as his eyes became unfocused, distant. “The Dark Lord only promised violence and blood-shed to the unhinged few who thirsted for it. Those were drawn to him by their nature. No, his strength resided in prevailing upon the coolest of heads and influencing them to believe he could provide everything they had ever wanted: power, acceptance, a sense of belonging…. He would look at you and make you feel wanted, seen, respected. If a wizard as powerful as him deigned you deserving of his attention, then surely you must be worth something. Certainly there must be something within you of value, something nobody else has been able to perceive until then, if they had even bothered to search for it in the first place.”

Hermione felt tears bloom in her eyes. Was that how Voldemort had lured him in? Had he pretended to see something in the lonely, beaten, bullied boy who had no friends and no loving family to provide for his emotional needs? Had he vowed to give him back the control he had been lacking all his life? Hermione knew a thing or two about not belonging. She had always had trouble in Muggle school. Sure the teachers had loved her and her parents had been proud of her accomplishments but before Ron and Harry, she had never any friends among her peers. Even in the wizarding world, she had struggled, being Muggle born and labelled as such, feeling the aura of rejection follow her everywhere like a faithful shadow. Yet she had never been without a support system. She had always had her parents, Harry, Ron, Ginny, the rest of Weasley clan, Luna, Neville, Professor Mcgonagall…. She couldn’t imagine how it felt to have nothing… and nobody.

He wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were staring into the shadows lurking in the corners of the room. In that moment Hermione sensed that this house was more haunted than the Prince Manor which had actual ghosts. She was overcome by a need not to leave him alone here. Ever!

She was startled when he strode out of the room through a door concealed behind an array of book. He left it opened just a fraction in his wake and Hermione could hear him puttering about on the other side of it. She followed him reluctantly and found herself in a tiny, claustrophobic kitchen poorly illuminated by a single lightbulb hanging by short, twisted wire from the ceiling. It cast uncertain neon rays onto the chipped, mustard coloured finishings and the fading, dirtied painting of the walls. She almost tripped before realising she should watch her step since the floor was uneven and cracked in places.

A few strands of dark, greasy hair had fallen over his face as he worked. He was making toast the old-fashioned, Muggle way, in a skillet, and had put a kettle on. A window that was not much bigger than her palms put together exposed a sliver of the darkness outside. Not street light broke it on this side of the house.

He reached into an overhead cupboard and pulled out a plate onto which he loaded two of the pieces of toast he had made. Then he handed it to her. She thanked him and took it. He inched closer, studying her face with a deepened version of his traditional glower.

“Does your head still ache?”

“A little,” she lied. The effects of the Veritaserum were gone. “I think I should best stay here tonight.”

To her surprise, he grasped her chin between two fingers and tilted her head towards the light. “Your pupils are dilated. It could be a side-effect of mixing Veritaserum with our recent Legilimency battle. Does light bother you also?”

“There’s not enough of it here to tell,” she answered a little breathlessly. He released her and when he did, the tiny portions of skin he had touched felt heated, as if branded.

“Stay still,” he commanded sternly.

A shiver travelled through Hermione, starting in her toes and making the top of her head tingle.

He stuck the light of his wand into her eyes without any preamble. She winced and all but dropped her plate. “All right…. Light bothers me.”

He withdrew his wand. “You are shaking. Are you cold?”

“Yes,” she lied again, feeling a bit guilty for letting him think his drugging her was causing these responses. Telling him the truth was not an option until she sorted her thoughts herself, however.

His lips twisted and he turned around in a flash disappearing before a miniscule door she had failed to notice before. The door was so tiny he practically had to fold himself in half to get through. He was back before the kettle even finished with a threadbare, brown blanket which he proceeded to wrap around her shoulders.

“I’m fine… honestly,” she said but didn’t try to escape his gesture.

He said nothing only handed her a small, white pill. “It’s Ibuprofen.”

“You have Ibuprofen?” She could not contain her astonishment over such a small yet startling thing. He couldn’t picture the mighty Hogwarts Potion Master stocking up on Muggle treatments.

“I have all manner of Muggle medicine,” he explained as he tossed tea bags in two ancient looking mugs and poured water over them. “I have been a spy in two wars. I sustained injuries I could not explain to my fellow Death Eaters, let alone the Dark Lord, any more than I could justify myself if they detected the presence of any healing potions in my blood.”

He piled the remaining toast on a plate of his own. “We should eat in the sitting room,” he said levitating the steaming mugs and his own plate in that direction.

There was nowhere to sit in the kitchen, the room too small for a table to fit in. Only a unsteady looking stool resided by the window.

“I am afraid they had to cut the kitchen in half when they built the bathroom,” he continued.

“When was that?” she asked wondering if he would reply. She made herself comfortable on the couch as he sat in the armchair.

“During the summer between my fifth and sixth year. Before that there was an outhouse that we shared with our neighbours and a communal water pump.” He spoke matter-of-factly as if he was relaying some unrelated, historical information to her.

_How would you like him to talk about growing up_ _so deprived_ _?_ , she chided herself. She had no frame of reference for what he was telling her. It sounded like something out of a 19th-century novel. She had had no idea there were living and breathing people who could remember something like that in a country that was generally thought of as affluent.

She held her mug between her fingers to warm her hands, her plate perched on her lap. She watched him take a cautiously small bite of his toast and had to wonder with a pang if he had gone hungry as a child. Again she chided herself. Of course, he had. She imagined him or his mother carrying water into the house from the outdoor pump to heat up for food or bathing. The way he neglected his appearance started to make sense now.

Not wanting to leave him with the impression that what he had shared with her bothered her, she bit into her toast too. It was warm and not too bad.

“Why aren’t you angrier about what Kingsley put me up to?”

“You are hardly the first person attempting to spy on me,” he replied coolly. He tasted his tea. “I am out of sugar, if you want any.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s fine.” She was curious, though. How did he get supplies here? There was no house elf to serve him. He didn’t shop, did he?

“Kingsley is afraid,” he said. “Not of me personally but of repeating Cornelius Fudge’s mistakes. Fudge denied Voldemort’s return until it was too late to prepare adequately for a new war. Kingsley doesn’t wish to make the same error. He wants to be ready if a new Dark Lord emerges.”

“That’s the least of his problems just now,” she muttered before pausing to eat some more, still marvelling at his cavalier attitude about what Kingsley had done. She, herself, was seething. The wrongness of what her former comrade-in-arms had asked her to do only now seemed to sink in.

He daintily brushed a few crumbs off his robe and into his plate. “I fought side by side with Kingsley. He is the best of all the bad ministers. Politicians and battle commanders can ill afford moral qualms.”

“Spoken like a true Slytherin,” she mumbled. However, it was indeed true that Kingsley was under a lot of pressure, struggling to reform the Ministry amid resistance and merciless public scrutiny.

“It was Slytherin like tactics that won you the war, Granger. You and your friends managed to keep your hands clean because there was someone who dirtied them for you. Charging at Voldemort head-first like a Gryffindor brought your side nothing but losses during the Voldemort’s first rise to power.”

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception,” she quoted.

“Machiavelli? Perhaps it was in your case that the Sorting Hat was too hasty.”

“My parents loved the classics,” she said, feeling a pang slice through her. “I grew up in a house filled with such literature.” She pause to drink from her tea. It was still hot but too strong for the evening. She fished out the bag and placed on her plate. “Do you know what this creature who crossed over into the Muggle world is?”

“No, not for certain. All I have been able to uncover so far is… a possibility.” He enunciated the words clearly and in a clipped manner, seeming to imply that the foggy knowledge bothered him.

“Are you going to tell me what that possibility is?” she chanced.

“No.” The word was rumbled in that low, gravelly baritone that contained a finality she was well acquainted with from class.

“Why not?” she pressed, though she knew that tone usually meant he could not be persuaded to change his mind.

“You are terrible spy, Hermione. First, you admitted to it and now you are questioning me directly.”

“I could help, you know,” she insisted. “And I would keep whatever you are trying to hide about the vampires a secret.”

He regarded her with hooded eyes. “What did Bellatrix do to you?”

His voice was tight and she had the impression he didn’t like delivering that particular low blow. Her mug clinked when she lowered it onto her now empty plate. “Why tell you when I can show you?” She wriggled free of the blanket and padded to where he sat. She rolled up her sleeve and removed the glamour placed on her skin with a quick, wordless spell. She tilted her arm towards the light of the flames to give him a better look. The word _mudblood_ coiled on her skin like pale tendrils of silver that glittered with an orange hue borrowed from the flames.

“My other scars went away but she used an enchanted knife when she did this. It could never be healed. Sometimes even the glamour dissolves.”

He said nothing, his face strangely blank. He place his cup and plate down on the floor, next to his armchair and got up. Still silent and still inscrutable, he opened the top buttons of his robe and rolled down the collar. Hermione’s stomach roiled. Half of his neck looked torn, only a mangled mass of jagged scars left of what used to be skin and muscle.

“This is the worst of them but not the only one. Not by far. It’s only a scar, Hermione.” He didn’t sound all that convinced.

It gave her courage to speak on. “It feels like so much more.” From everything she had learn of him, she had a feeling that he of all people would understand. “I have been hearing this word on and off ever since I started at Hogwarts. Now it’s engraved on my body. Forever!”

She gasped when his hand shot out faster than she could see and grasped her arm, his palm covering the word inscribed onto her skin. He had amazing reflexes. Pain flashed across his face. It was so profound and afflicted with despair, that it took her breath away.

“I can remove it,” he said firmly. “I know the spell Bellatrix used to enchant the knife. You can counter it with a brand. A brand is a sort of magic tattoo. Much like its Muggle counterpart, a brand is painful to apply but it can take any form you want. Unlike a Muggle tattoo, you may change its shape whenever you wish. I was not permitted to teach you about it during the D.A.D.A. classes because technically, it can be classified as Dark Magic but it is a simple enough spell.” He removed his hand from her when he noticed her staring where he was touching her. “You should also know that the Dark Lord used a variation of this spell he had devised himself to imprint his Mark upon his followers.”

Hermione flickered his eyes to his face. His palm had been warm and dry, his fingers calloused as they had wrapped around her arm. His face was far cooler and stoic looking.

She nodded. “Do it.”

“Hermione… you have a habit of asking things of me at night that you regret come the morning light.”

“I won’t regret this,” she said resolutely. “Of all the people I have spoken to about removing the scar, you are the only who managed to come up with a solution.”

“I am certain at least a few of them knew there was a solution but were loathe to mention anything that might be tied back to the Dark Lord. Paranoia followed the first war as well. Nobody wished to be branded a Death Eater by mistake then, either. Nobody wants to risk it now.”

“Nobody but you.”

He buttoned his robe back up. “I am a Death Eater.”

“Former,” she pointed out, trying to enunciate her word slowly as he often. “Death Eater.”

“Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater… at least, until you are suspected of attempting to become a Dark Lord of your own.”

How she wished his cynicism was less justified! But she was beginning to understand his jaded view of the world better and better. She wasn’t sure she liked that.

“Sleep on what I have imparted. Even if you come to feel no regrets in the aftermath, the pain is considerable and there is no potion that can alleviate it. Your nerves have taken enough of an impact tonight.”

“Not more than they did the night Bellatrix did this to me.” She pushed her sleeve back down.

“Is this why you cannot sleep at night?”

“Among other things,” she admitted. “You can’t sleep either, can you?”

“I am more experienced in these matters than you. I have been having troubles sleeping since the first war.”

“How do…. How do you learn to live with this… the memory of pain, the faces of the dead?”

His ebony eyes settled on her, dark and heavy with foreboding. Hermione allowed herself to be caught in their serpentine trap.

“You don’t,” he said, his voice so soft she had to strain to hear him.

“I would give anything to forget,” she confessed, still held within the hypnotic power of his eyes. “If only for one night.” She knew he could make her forget but she was hesitant to let him into her mind again. If she did, he would see she had been struggling to keep their bond alive and then he would want to know why. She had no good answer to give him to that question.

“Perhaps you should try a Dreamless Draught?” he offered.

Was it her imagination or was his voice uneven?

“I’ve taken so much of it that I’ve developed a resistance. Healer Strout says many have had this problem since the war.”

“I imagine they have.” He levitated his plate off the floor. “Come. If you are insistent on staying here for the night, then I should show you where you would have your next bout of insomnia.”

TBC


	14. Hermione's Heart

_A year earlier_

Severus pushed his mother’s ring on Hermione’s trembling finger. His jaw was clenched so tight that his teeth were starting to hurt. He chanced a look at her face as he released her hand as fast as humanly possible. She was wearing make-up: something faintly shimmering on her eye-lids, a touch of rose on her cheekbones and a bit of coral on her lips. All her misgivings were written plainly on her face. He fixed his gaze past her shoulder as they were pronounced husband and wife.

It was a little how he had imagined his parents’ own wedding to have happened: terse and full of so much misery, it made the air nearly unbreathable. He had never fully understood what his mother had married his father. Had there been a time, however, brief when she had loved him? Had they ever loved each other? Had his father even been capable of love? Was there a time when they had actually entertained illusions of happiness? Would that have actually made everything that had followed any worse?

It took him a moment to realize the tomb like silence wrapped around them. His bride was staring at him on the verge of tears. Right! Gritting his teeth, he leaned forward and brushed his lips against her left cheek for the briefest of instants. She smelled of the orange blossoms woven into her hair and despair. He could not draw back fast enough.

A wand was waved above their heads. Silvery stars glittered from it, raining over them. In some Muggle cultures, falling stars were an omen of death. It was fitting but he wondered if anyone present knew. Some of tiny scintillating meteors caught in Hermione’s hair. He offered her his arm and she hang onto it for dear life as they made their way through the few rows of seated guests, whose sympathetic gazes rested mostly on Hermione.

They were in the Weasleys’ backyard and had been married underneath an impromptu gazebo made from a garnish-free gleaming ebony archway giving way to a white drape swaying gently in the wind. Thankfully, there were no balloons, no butterflies, no glitter, no pink, no swans, glass-pun or otherwise, no garishly happy decorations to contrast with the maudlin nature of the whole affair.

As they approached the house, Hermione slipped her arm free and rushed inside. Molly and Arthur Weasley had invited everyone for a meal, not a party, after the ceremony. It was going to be a long afternoon.

# # #

The sun was already setting when someone had managed to talk Molly Weasley out of torturing them with Celestina Warbeck’s songs. Ginevra Weasley put on some of that painful cacophony her generation mistook for music. It was then that he had made his escape. Outside the air was crisp and he drew it into his lungs gratefully. He had a sudden hankering for a cigarette. He had given up smoking a long time ago. After his father’s death, his ludicrous act of teenage rebellion served no purpose any more. Besides, it affected his sense of smell, which was vital in a potioneer.

The sound of gut-wrenching sobs travelled to his ears. He followed it with his careful, measured steps learnt in his years as a spy, and found his bride in one of the chairs behind the house. She was doubled over and crying her heart out, a not-at-all surprising reaction to being married to him. He inched himself closer and took off his cloak. The air had become frigid and she only had on those flimsy matrimonial robes.

She startled, as he gently laid his cloak over her shoulders, and her eyes snapped to his face. Her make-up was smudged, colourful rivulets running down her cheeks. He reached into a pocket for a handkerchief. He had gotten into the habit of carrying several pieces of clean linen with him at all times when he had first become Head of Slytherin House. His opened door policy had soon revealed a most undesired side-effect in the form of crying, hormonal girls coming to him to complain that their parents didn’t understand them or that this or that boy was not returning their affections. It had been most vexing but he could have never rescinded his initial policy. Whenever a Slytherin ran into trouble at Hogwarts, no teacher listened, as he could attest from personal experience. He had been everything they had had.

Hermione took his proffered hanky and dabbed at her eyes, smudging her make-up further, before she blew her nose with gusto. Oh yes, it was exactly like being back at Hogwarts. And he couldn’t even get the satisfaction of deducting Gryffindor house point for Granger’s undignified display.

“Thanks…. This is not about…. I’m not crying because….” She waved at hand at the now abandoned row of chairs with the gazebo at the front that was flanked by two potted Flutterby bushes he had not even noticed before, so focused he had been on his future-wife advancing towards him as if she had been heading to to the gallows.

“Of course you are,” he said exasperatedly. They both knew what this was.

“I was just thinking… my parents would have wanted to be here so much. My mother must have been planning my wedding ever since I was born.”

He scoffed. “I sincerely doubt you would want your parents to see this just as I am certain your mother would have her chance at arranging your wedding before long.”

“What if I never find them?”

He cast a look towards the house but no salvation came from there. “Perhaps Minerva would be better suited for this conversation… or one of your friends.”

She blew her nose again, the look in her eyes confused, even as she burrowed deeply into his cloak, pulling the collar around her neck. “You were leaving, weren’t you?”

“I was attempting to,” he grumbled. He felt strangely weary and the bite mark on his neck was back to aching again. He wanted a bed, a smoke and a stiff drink. And no more Weasleys. For a year or two!

She pulled to her feet. “Honestly… I’m sorry for keeping you.” She shrugged out of his cloak and held it out to him.

He swirled it around his shoulders, a whiff of orange blossoms wafting to his nose from the collar. “You would best return inside where it’s warm, Miss Granger,” he lectured, his tone patronizing to his own ears. He felt a perverse inclination to hurt her just as she had wounded his ego with her despondency during the wedding. He had never in his worst nightmare wanted to wed her and he understood why this was so much worse on her than it was on him. Still her obvious disgust had galled, so reminiscent was it of the one once mirrored in a pair of green eyes instead of brown.

She snickered. “We have just been married today, Professor. You might as well start calling me Hermione.”

“Very well… Hermione,” he responded frostily. “You may call me Severus if you wish,” he added as he wrapped his cloak more securely around himself and took flight.

# # #

_N ow_

Her husband lead Hermione back into the kitchen then through the miniscule door carved into one wall and into an old-time bathroom with visible rusty pipes, a tiny tube with no shower and a sink with yellowing porcelain.

“There is… soap, should you need it.”

“Thank you,” she said, trying hard to keep the heart-break from her voice.

Why was he keeping this place? Had he lived here throughout his years at Hogwarts? Had he come here during the summers?

He pointed to another, taller door opposite the one they had come through. “That leads to the back yard. If you use, I suggest you watch your step.” He paused looking at her rather awkwardly. He seemed even taller in the cramped space of the bathroom. “There is a spare toothbrush in the cabinet.”

They returned to the sitting room and he opened the door in the corner opposite the entrance. This door was also obscured by a book shelf. The foot of the stairs curved before going up and into a narrow staircase, which creaked underneath their every step, and finished with a tunnel of a landing. He went in through the first door. When Hermione came in after him, he had already switched on the light that spilled from yet another lone bulb hanging from the ceiling, so she put out the one of her wand.

The room was tunnel like too, falling just short of long and narrow. She suspected they were above the kitchen and this used to be its initial outline before the bathroom had split it in two. The greenish wallpaper was peeling off in places. An iron-framed bed lined the wall on the left, and was covered by a blue blanket pulled all the way to the white-encased pillow. It was the cleanest, least suspicious looking thing in the room. A slightly slanted cupboard with a door that didn’t close all the way was nestled in the right corner while a matching sideboard stretched all the way to a rickety, tiny vanity table with a vinyl-encased chair shoved underneath it. There were books stacked atop the sideboard and unlike the ones in the sitting room, most of them were Muggle looking.

He marched to the sideboard, opened one of its drawers that whined and protested the move, and withdrew a fresh blanket and a pillow no bigger than a cushion. “Good night,” he said tightly.

“Where are you going to sleep?” she asked.

“There is a couch downstairs.”

“That’s nowhere near big enough for you.”

He regarded her with a kind of tired condescension, his dark eyes cold and blank. “It’s a pull-out.”

Hermione grimaced remembering how uncomfortable the couch had been to sit on let alone sleep. “What about the other room?” she asked remembering the other other door she had seen on the landing.

His expression darkened dangerously, his mouth setting in a firm line before replying. “That is my parents’ bedroom.”

Hermione filed that under subject best avoided for the time being. “I could take the couch.”

“Do not be ridiculous. I would most likely not sleep much, anyway.” He turned around in a whirl of black robes and black hair.

“Good night,” she called after him a small smile.

He didn’t answer. The door banged after him a second later.

Once alone, Hermione breathed in deeply. Once, twice, thrice…. Her heart was pounding. She went to the door as quietly as she could, though the unsteady floorboards moaned with her every step. She listened to his steps as they descended the staircase then counted to twenty in her head. When the house had sunk into silence again, she moved away from the door and focused on a happy memory derived from the early days of her friendship with Harry and Ron. She lifted her wand and whispered tremulously:

“Expecto patronum.”

The familiar silvery otter burst from the tip of her wand, floated against the low ceiling before bounding out the window. She heaved a deep sigh of relief. Her legs felt like jelly. She slid to the bed and sat down on it. It was hard as stone, unsurprisingly.

Fortunately, for all his brilliance, Severus Snape had his blind spots too. There was another, quite simple explanation for dilated pupils: attraction. It was crush, nothing more. She fancied his extraordinary mind much like some girls sometimes fell for a pretty face. She understood now why she wanted to retain the bond, why she spent so much time on the imagery he had left in her head, trying to extract every last trace of his presence there, why had she searched for memories of their classes together that attested to his remarkable intellect. Her adult eyes had gifted her with a fresh new perspective on those.

She kicked off her shoes and stretched herself onto the bed the best she could. A crush, she could manage. A crush could pass on its own. People grew tired of a beautiful face. She was less convinced that she could grow tired of a mind as exceptional as that of her husband but she hoped that she would if she gave it enough time. The important thing was not to let it become serious.

It wasn’t that she was bothered by the logical objections one might rise to Severus Snape. He was no longer her teacher. She didn’t care about their age gap or his reputation or what others would say. The problem was of another nature entirely: Severus Snape was unavailable and not because he was married to her but because he was deeply, steadily in love with another woman he had not gotten over in nearly two decades. And Hermione had a whole garden of lilies in her head to prove it.

She twisted to her side, resting a palm beneath her cheek. If they had married not out of love, of course, but under more agreeable circumstances, would he have brought her here on their wedding night? Would they have made love in this very bed? Heat rose to her face and she sat up abruptly.

He had lovely hands, sculptured as if from the purest of white marbles by the talented chisel of a master of old. There was such an elegance to them, such precision as he had handled everything in Potions class, such hint of danger sometimes when he held his wand as if it were an extension of his body. She froze. This was bad.

She got up and decided to explore the books to distract herself. Most of them were doggy-eared, well worn copies. She suspected they predated his enrolment at Hogwarts or at the very least, had been acquired during the summers when he had been away from the wizarding school. She could comprehend as much. Her own love of learning and reading had been borne long before Hogwarts, in the Muggle world. She scanned a few of the titles on display until she came across Fitzgerald’s _The Great Gatsby._

“Shocking,” she muttered sarcastically under her breath. After all, Fitzgerald had practically invented irrational pining over women named after flowers.

Careful not to topple over the whole pile, she pulled a book out and opened it at random. It was a hackneyed copy of _The Seasons of the Soul_ by Hermann Hesse. She read.

_My love and my yearning for home_

_have turned away from the noise of this world_

_and in your dark eyes_

_have built a vast, secret throne._

She slapped the book back in its place. She could fall in love with him, she felt it in the marrow of her bones. What was with her and men who were so radically different than each other? Viktor, Ron… now Severus Snape of all men. This was different, though, novel and utterly insidious. She felt no butterflies in her stomach, no secret thrill, but somehow it was more dangerous, like standing at the edge of a precipice, ready to fall. It could grow just like the sprout of their agonizing bond amid the dry, water-starved ground of their prickly interactions. It wasn’t simple as it had been with Viktor or safe like with Ron. There was no cushion of friendship onto which to fall if things went bad. No, Snape would shatter her.

Was it already too late? Could she stop herself now that she knew? Did she even want to?

_Don’t do this_ , she told herself. _This could only lead to heart-break._

There was no way she could keep such a secret from him. Not in the long run. Her fledging Occlumency walls were not enough to keep him at bay if he slipped into her mind again. Only her flashback had halted his assault tonight but it had been a fluke. Without it he would have discovered her crush even before she did. She knew what he would do then: crush her beneath the wheel of his monumental disdain. Or would he take advantage? Well, it wouldn’t be taking advantage per se since she wanted him. Did she? The thought of those exquisite, dextrous hands on her send such a visceral reaction surging through her body, that she all but swayed on her feet.

Shaking her head to dispel her unsettling thoughts, she went back to exploring… or was it snooping? There was a moving sepia photograph on the vanity table. She raised it with no small amount of uncertainty. She had had no qualms roving around the Prince Manor but this house was different. It felt intimate, like she was intruding on something that didn’t belong to her.

The photograph showed a woman with a familiar long face and a sallow, gaunt looking appearance that was only further emphasized by her sour expression and vacant eyes. Eileen Snape, nee Prince, Severus’ mother. There was a folded sheet of paper tucked in the lower left corner of the fragile, carton frame. She pulled it out gingerly. It was half of another picture, one that had been torn, and it depicted Lily Potter. Harry’s mother. Snape’s great true love.

Hermione squashed on the feelings rising within her. She would not be jealous of Harry’s mother who had given her life to protect him when he was just a baby. It was monstrous. She returned the two photographs to the state in which she had found them with trembling hands. Then she pulled out the chair from underneath the table to have a seat and almost fell over. One of the legs was slightly crooked and one had to be careful to arrange it on the floor just so in order to avoid toppling to the floor.

She hadn’t given much thought to Dumbledore’s disgust over Snape seemingly only wishing to rescue Lily from Voldemort and not her husband and son too. But she understood him better now. No, not the former Hogwarts headmaster, but Severus himself. If Lily Evans had been some random, strange woman, she could have hated her, been envious of her or fought to splinter the icon of her Severus carried within her heart. However, it was inhuman to harbour such thoughts of her best friend’s mother who had died when he was only a small child. How could Dumbledore for all his wisdom failed to comprehend how difficult it had to have been for Severus to fight for the life of his childhood tormentor and that of his baby, a child who was a complete unknown to him? The human heart was not as straightforward.

It wasn’t Lily’s fault that Severus still loved her and knew not how to stop. Just like it wasn’t Harry’s fault that he had James Potter’s face. She realised that intellectually Snape had to have known as much yet seeing Harry in class all those years couldn’t have been easy. Admittedly Harry’s attitude hadn’t helped matters much, either. Yet he still had protected Harry and not just him, his friends too, herself included. He still had been ready to die for him. Would she have done the same if Snape and Lily had had a child and it had fallen to Hermione to protect him or her with her own life? She would like to think so but apparently there were depths to her own heart that she was hardly aware of.

She rubbed a hand over her gritty eyes. Tonight would be sleepless for a brand new reason. She undressed quickly, feeling oddly self-conscious, and folded her clothes over the back of the chair. Then she transfigured her underwear into a set of pyjamas. She got in bed and found the pillow to have a slight lemony scent mixed in with the tang of herbs. It smelled like him. She squeezed her eyes shut and hummed low under her breath. Then she turned to face the wall, wrestling with the blanket on her way. There was a sure-fire way to fall asleep but she feared it tonight.

After an hour or so of tossing and turning, her mind tapped onto her bond with Severus virtually on instinct. In the garden, the lilies assaulted her with their bright, spell-binding beauty. She trampled a few on her way to the sprout, guilt blossoming within her as the healthy stems turned to green mush beneath her feet.

The sprout was tilted to one side, both of its leaves dry and floundering on the parched ground. Despondency overcame her. Apparently, she couldn’t even have this mall thing from him. She thought back the torn photograph of Lily Evans Potter. The tip of a dark suspicion bloomed in her mind. She believed she knew with whom Lily had been in that photography and why Snape had mangled it. She could go to him, of course, and tell him she had changed her mind, that she wanted the link now but then she would have to explain herself. Doing so was the quickest way to ensure that she would be served with annulment papers.

Annulment…. Time was running out on their marriage. The contract, to which she had so readily and gratefully agreed, specified they would be married for a minimum of two years, a maximum of three. She didn’t dare hope for the maximum. Severus would be no doubt in a hurry to rid himself of the imposition she represented in his life. She awoke with a start. Her head was splitting. She never slept again that night.

TBC


	15. Early Morning at Spinner's End

When the bleary light of a foggy autumn dawn began to spill into her… Severus’ room, Hermione rose. The scrimpy room looked even worse in the harsh light of day. The furniture was coated in a thick layer of dust and the whole place looked in dire need of a clean-up… preferably by means of a flame-thrower. The wall as revealed by the gashes in the wallpaper was stained with mould and water damage. It smelled like it too, the air thick and oppressive. She cast aside the blanket and padded all the way to the window through the narrow corridor between the furniture cluttering the room. She winced at the cold floor. 

The window gave her a bird’s eye of the back yard: a tiny patch of land overrun with weeds that autumn had failed to kill properly. Another row of dirty brown terrace houses curved around the cluster of yards separated by a tiny, rubbish-strewn alley, the landscape one of decrepit walls and grey skies. Snape’s own yard had a derelict looking shed that in the past had probably been used for storing coal. What was left of the former communal privy stood farther to the side, its roof caved in. The water pump still stood next to it. 

Again a vision of Eileen Snape carrying heavy buckets filled with water into the house filled her mind. She couldn’t image Severus’ abusive father helping around much. Perhaps Severus himself had aided his mother when he grew older. She imagined Eileen warming the water in the kitchen and washing her son in a zinc bath probably once a week or rarer. She saw the small boy in Muggle school being made fun of for his unwashed appearance and greasy hair. 

Her hands balled into fists at her side, her teeth grinding together. She wanted to go back in time and punch everyone who had ever called him a greasy git in the face and yes, that included her own friends. 

_We didn’t know_ , she thought. 

_You judged him too,_ her conscience scolded. _Perhaps not as harshly as Harry and Ron but you did…. You took Remus’ and Sirius’ side without even considering his point of view. You just believed that his actions towards them were dictated by a mere school time grudge._

It struck her all of the sudden how unfair it was to judge someone at face-value. Nobody truly knew what secret torment and terrible memories other people carried within. She shouldn’t rush to form opinions so quickly and based on so little evidence ever again. She shouldn’t allow prejudice to cloud her impression of those around her. 

A small, uglier voice at the back of her mind wondered if she had been less stern with Severus, had he been conventionally handsome, warmer, smiling more, praising her like the rest of her teachers, if his hair had been cleaner and his robes less black. Her heart sank. Her and her friends’ preconceived notions of him had let him die on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. It had been sheer fluke that he had survived. The man who had made their victory possible by sacrificing everything. 

It was easy being a hero in the light, where everyone could see, where everyone regarded you like a valiant champion of goodness and justice. But what about in the dark, where nobody could see, where everyone would spit on you? How did it feel to do the right thing day in and day out while everybody hated you for it and looked at you with nothing but hate and condemnation? It was no surprise that he couldn’t stand the sight of all of them. It was easy being kind to him now that they all knew the truth. But nobody had given him a chance when it had mattered the most. Nobody had come to his aid then, he, the man who had saved them all. 

All because he was unpleasant and prickly and strange… and different. His cursed lot in life, being other than the norm among the Muggles and the Wizardkind alike. How else should he be growing up in this house, with his father beating both him and and his obviously broken, sad mother, bullied in school, scorned, friendless, unwanted and unloved? And yet, despite everything, he was still rushing to save them all. Again. 

She rubbed at hear tearful eyes. In that moment she didn’t care that she was risking her heart and peace of mind by falling for him. She wanted this to be more than a crush, more than her fawning over an exceptional mind. She wanted to be in love with him, snide remarks and difficult nature included. She wanted to dream of those beautiful hands on her. 

She drew back from the window and as she did, caught sight of herself in the vanity mirror. She guessed appearance didn’t much matter to him but still it would not do for him to see her looking like Medusa’s younger sister. Her sleepless night had left its mark on her face: purplish, bruised skin surrounded her dull, blood-shot eyes while her hair formed a frizzy, out-of-control halo around her tired-looking face. 

Grabbing her clothes she darted down the staircase, fervently hoping she wouldn’t run into him. She made it safely to the bathroom and found a fresh towel on the edge of the sink. It held a clean, plain smell. She opened the cabinet in search of the spare toothbrush he had mentioned the night before and found a medicine stash that would have made any drug dealer green with envy. The more she learned about this man, the more she realised there seemed to be only one thing to discover about him: pain.

Suddenly drained, she tried to sit on the edge of the bathtub only to hear it emit an odd sound of protest. She jumped up as if burned. She needed to figure out how to convince him either to move or renovate place. It wasn’t just unfit for human habitation, it was unfit for a rat infestation. 

Washing was easier said than done. The water took forever to warm up and she had to resort to a charm. She used one to clean up her clothes, too. Her hair, however, posed a whole other set of problems. All she had found to wash was a bar of white, vaguely lemony smelling soap. She conjured some shampoo and washed her unruly mane the best she could in the tub. In the process she slipped three times and twice she almost broke a limb. This house was actively trying to kill her. Finally, she resorted to a drying spell, which was never a good idea, not with her hair. The result included her hair nearly tripling its size and a twisted, horribly uneven version of her curls. She gave up on braiding it and tied it in a ponytail the best she could and got dressed. 

The kitchen was empty and smelling of coffee. She found an electric percolating coffee pot on the floor next to the outlet its worn cable was stuffed in. The appliance might have been retro if it wasn’t so thoroughly scratched. She searched for a mug, raising entire clouds of dust as she fiddled around the kitchen, remembering too late what he had said about not having any sugar. She supposed cream was out of the question. Since she had started having troubles sleeping, she had become quite the caffeine addict. She took her coffee with flavoured cream, sugar and even chopped up chocolate on top on occasion. 

Her first sip was almost enough to put her off coffee altogether. The still hot—courtesy of a stasis spell, black liquid tasted like battery acid and was so strong it nearly gave her a heart-attack. She tried diluting it with some tap water but the improvement was marginal. Forget Voldemort, how had his morning coffee not killed him yet? 

There was no sign of breakfast anywhere. Rummaging around some more, she discovered very limited food supplies. She frowned. Severus had always looked rather skinny but it had never occurred to her before that he was unhealthily so. She had never seen him eat much at the Prince Manor, either, not that she blamed him, given the weird and often unpalatable food Cagey made. She supposed the elf’s cooking might have been appropriate a few hundred years ago but now it was just mostly disgusting. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen him indulge whenever she had sneaked a glance at the professors’ table back at Hogwarts, either. 

That was it. There was only so much a conjuring charm could do but she had a few galleons on her she could transfigurate into Muggle cash. There had to be a shop around here somewhere. She went into the sitting room but found it empty. Where was he? When she looked around, she saw that the beautiful crimson book that had held her attention the previous evening was nowhere to be seen. She wouldn’t put it past him to have hidden it from her, though she had made it clear she didn’t know the language in which it was written. 

A knock at the front door almost made her jump out of her skin. She approached the entrance cautiously. Kingsley wouldn’t send the Aurors after him based on gossip and speculation, would he? Gripping her wand, she parted the door carefully. 

A young woman barely out of her teens stood on the other side. She wore a Slytherin green cloak tinged with silver. Stifling a sigh of relief, Hermione opened the door wider. The newcomer pulled down the hood of her cloak and Hermione found herself staring at one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. She was tall and slim with an elegant, statuesque posture, faded caramel complexion that had not one visible pore, long, glossy chestnut hair and poetic brown eyes. There was a touch of shimmering pink on her lush lips that curved fractionally at the sight of Hermione. Those high cheekbones could cut grass, Hermione was sure of it. If the wizarding world had had an Elle magazine, this woman would have been on its cover. Permanently. 

“I apologise for disturbing you at such an early hour, Mrs. Prince,” the stranger said in a soft, melodic voice with a refined accent reminiscent of that of the Malfoys. “But I was wondering if I might have a word with Professor Snape.” 

So the goddess on her doorstep was a former student too. She didn’t look familiar but then Hermione’s interactions with the Slytherins had been mostly limited to Draco and his cronies. Keenly aware of her plain jeans and flannel top and nightmarish hair, Hermione stepped aside and invited in the other woman. 

“My husband is out at the moment,” Hermione said prickly, hoping she wouldn’t be asked where Severus was. “But you may wait for him to return if you want.” 

“You are most kind.” 

Was that a curtsy? Because it sure looked like one. 

In any case, the newcomer daintily undid the string tying her cape at the neck. Her short, manicured nails were painted in a colour that matched that of her lips. 

Before Hermione could say anything else, the kitchen door opened and Severus came in, all black clothes and buttons and slightly oily hair and sneering expression. His scowl grew annoyed at the sight of his visitor. Marilyn Monroe wouldn’t have stood a chance with this man. 

“Miss Greengrass,” he snapped. “What are you doing here?” 

Miss Greengrass promptly lowered her gaze, colour blooming on those perfect cheekbones of hers. 

“Good morning, Professor. I apologise for imposing upon you but I was wondering if we might speak.” She shot him a pleading look. 

His grimace was as unwelcoming as ever, his eyes cold. He glared a warning at Miss Greengrass. Hermione suddenly felt sorry for her and ashamed at her previous thoughts. Hadn’t she just resolved to look beneath the surface?

“Miss Greengrass,” she blurted. “Perhaps I could offer you something to drink. A cup of tea maybe?” There was no way she was feeding that delicate creature Severus’ coffee. It would kill her where she stood. 

Greengrass looked at her with such hope in those gorgeous, doe eyes of hers. “Yes, tea would be lovely, thank you, Mrs. Prince.” 

Hermione rushed into the kitchen giving Severus a pointed look on her way. His glare promised bloody murder in return. 

Greengrass? There had been a Greengrass in her year, one of Pansy Parkinson’s friends, but her name was Daphne and she was a green-eyed blonde. Could this be her sister? She prepared a mug of Severus’ sugarless tea for their guest and made her way back into the sitting room. 

The scene that greeted her was not wholly new to Hermione, who had served a few detentions with him. He sat in the armchair, as imperious as if he were perching from the dais in the Potions classroom back at Hogwarts, while Greengrass stood by the fireplace with her head bowed. Her cloak was folded on the arm of the couch and she was now clad in a pristine white robe garnished with tiny, coral flowers.

“I am no longer the head of Slytherin House,” he was saying, his tone acerbic. “I have no desire to involve myself in a familial conflict.” 

Hermione crossed to Greengrass and handed her the cup of warm tea, noting her silver Slytherin pin, the eyes of the snake made of rubies, as she did. The other woman took it with heartfelt thank you, meeting Hermione’s eyes with her misty ones. 

“Hermione, stay,” he ordered, his voice positively arctic. “Not content with importuning me, Miss Astoria Greengrass has a request to make of you as well.” 

Hermione smiled. “Certainly. What can I do for you, Miss Greengrass?” she asked kindly. 

Astoria lowered her gaze to her mug. “My sister, Daphne, was in your year at Hogwarts. I am two behind. She would like to… acquire employment. We have money, of course, but the lack of meaningful work is starting to affect her. However, nobody would fire the daughter of….” She shot Snape a desperately pleading look.

“Convicted Death Eater,” he supplied, his expression pinched. 

“My sister and I were not involved in the war, nor did we support the… Dark Lord, however….”

“People still spit on them in the streets,” Snape added. 

Hermione was appalled. “Would you like me to help your sister find work with the Ministry?”

Astoria looked mortified. “No, of course not. We would never presume. Something small, even in a shop, would do. Daphne doesn’t know I am here. She thinks it’s hopeless but I thought to try. A letter of recommendation from a member of the Golden Trio could go a long way in gaining the trust of a prospective employer.” 

Snape scoffed, prompting Hermione to glare at him. 

“I don’t ask for favours,” Astoria continued, her voice now small. “I have already explained this to the Professor. While it is true there is not much we can do at present to repay you, should you need our help with anything in the future, we fully intend to….”

Hermione hastened to wave her off. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll gladly help you and I don’t want anything in return. Honestly! Don’t even mention it.” 

Astoria regaled with a megawatt smile that showed her straight, pearly teeth. “I could never thank you enough.”

Snape peeled to his feet, his expression darkening. “Miss Greengrass, sit.” He indicated the couch with a curt gesture and Astoria rushed to obey. “Hermione, a word?”

# # #

He shut the kitchen door after them with more firmness than it was strictly necessary then turned to shoot Hermione a withering look. 

“You did not even know Astoria until I told you who she was.”

“I know her sister,” she retorted. “She was in my year.”

“What is it that you know about her?”

“That she is not guilty for her father’s crimes.” 

His eyes narrowed dangerously. When he spoke, his voice was soft and calm, too calm. She had learned to recognize this as him at his most perilous even as she had been his student. “You are giving the both of them false hope. Or are you so arrogant as to believe anyone will hire a Greengrass on your word alone? Tell me, how do you plan to sign your letter of recommendation? Hermione Granger, member of the Golden Trio, or Hermione Granger-Prince, wife of a Death Eater who escaped justice?” 

“That’s unfair.”

“Need I remind you are here because the Minister believes me to scheme to become the next Dark Lord?” 

Hermione lowered her gaze to the floor, feeling her cheeks heat, fury and shame rising within her. “I can’t not do anything.” She glanced back at him. “Don’t you see? False hope might be better than no hope at all.”

He still looked murderous. “And when that collapses, wouldn’t the abyss left behind be even greater?” 

“What would you have me do? Go back there and tell Astoria that I’m sorry but she and her sister are the daughters of a Death Eater and that’s all they will ever amount to?”

“Poison cushioned in honey is still poison. Better to face the truth now, however unpleasant it might be, than allow empty promises to wear them down little by little until they have nothing left.” 

“I am going to write that letter, no matter how I decided to sign it,” she said firmly. “And if that doesn’t work, I’ll get Harry and Ron to write one too. If you care about the students in Slytherin, which I know you, you would help her with her other problem as well.”

“After I do that, I shall also tell the sun not to shine, the wind not to blow and the water not to feel wet to the touch.”

“You’re a powerful wizard. I have every confidence in your abilities,” she snipped. 

“You are insufferable.”

“And you are being childish.” 

“No, it is you and Astoria who are the children. Refusing to see reason and what is right in front of you.”

“So that’s it? We should just bow down to the unfairness of it all?” 

“Life is unfair,” he thundered, his dark eyes burning with a searing, manic flame. “It’s even more so for Astoria Greengrass. Her mother died in the war, her father is in Azkaban, she is ill, she would never be able to work and her beloved’s family rejects her. How could one measly letter possibly counter any of it?” 

“It could show her that not everyone thinks the same of her.”

“Oh, but you do.” He took a step towards her, his glower especially dark. “You just feel sorry for her. What you fail to realise is that your pity makes everything worse.”

Hermione began to suspect it wasn’t her he was angry at. “Be that as it may, I’m still writing that letter.” 

“What is her middle name?” he called after her when she turned to the door, his voice dripping with icy contempt. “What is Daphne Greengrass’ middle name?”

She pivoted back to him. “What?”

“If you are to write a letter for her benefit, what name are you going to put down on it?”

She met his glare squarely, rising her chin in challenge. “I’m sure her sister will tell me.” 

“Tell me one then?”

Suddenly she was thrust back in class with him, only that this time she didn’t have the answer. “What do you mean?”

He raised his left eyebrow towards his hear, haughty derision written in his every pore. “The middle name of one Slytherin in your ear.”

He had her there. She didn’t know. “Draco doesn’t have a middle name,” she tried, shame making her cheeks burn. She understood all too well what he was intimating. 

That eyebrow went up again. “Are you quite certain?” 

She concentrated. Their names had been called up in class, though not always in their entirety and she hadn’t always paid attention to that part, either too focused on Ron and Harry and their shared issue of the day or not caring much, since it wasn’t subject related. 

He sneered, triumph glittering in his eyes. “What are you going to write in your letter then? That Daphne Greengrass is a nice person. She’s not! That she was Sorted into Slytherin by mistake? She wasn’t! Her sister exposed herself to humiliation by coming to see you. You owe her the courtesy of the truth. You cannot help her.” 

Apparently he didn’t know her very well, either. “Oh, but I can,” she groused and dashed back into the sitting room before he could stop her again.

Astoria Greengrass sat on the couch holding her cup between her long, elegant fingers, striking a pose that was both dignified and graceful. Her eyes were too bight when they regarded Hermione. She had to wonder how much of her spat with Severus Astoria had overheard. 

Hermione marched to Severus’ desk and sat down. Of the corner of one eye she saw him looking affronted by her presumption. Well, that was just too bad. Hermione pulled out the chair and sat down gingerly, remembering her adventure with the one in his room upstairs. She was taking a stand. It would not do to undermine her point by falling over. She grabbed a sheet of parchment. Severus folded his arms over his chest meticulously, doing his bat impersonation again. Astoria was looking at him beseechingly, deferring to him as if he was still her Head of House. Perhaps it still felt this way. Hermione liked Slughorn well enough but she was beginning to doubt his effectiveness in terms of caring for the Slytherins who didn’t meet the standards of his little Favouritism Club. 

“Miss Greengrass,” Hermione began.

“Astoria, please,” the younger woman interrupted gently.

“You can call me Hermione too.” 

Astoria actually looked at Severus for confirmation. He nodded and only then she acquiesced. Hermione telegraphed him a death glare of her own. 

“I won’t pretend to know your sister… at all,” Hermione continued as she reached for her husband’s quill. It was a sturdy, high-quality raven-feather quill that strongly contrasted with the rest of the house. “If you could perhaps fill in on a few details… like for instance, what is her middle name?” She turned her head to look at Snape whose lips quivered in a smirk. Hermione smiled beatifically at him. 

“My sister doesn’t have a middle name. None of us does.” 

“What about Draco?” Hermione asked, unable to help herself. 

Astoria started at the question, a brief expression of pain and uncertainty crossing her features. Her boyfriend’s family, the one who was rejecting her, was the Malfoys, she realised. How could Severus not intervene on her behalf? He was probably the only one left in the world to whom the Malfoys would listen. They needed to, they depended on their continued connection with him for their admittance into polite wizarding society. 

“I’ll kill you later, when we have no witnesses,” she groused at him. 

He smirked again, the corners of his luscious, pale lips lifting a fraction. The muscle in his cheeks moved with his mouth, even though no teeth showed. It would have been very attractive, had she not been so furious with him. 

“I would like to see you try,” he taunted. 

Hermione’s stomach did a weird, little flip.

Astoria was on her feet in an instant. “Perhaps I should come back another day.”

“Miss Greengrass, sit back down this very moment,” he barked. 

Astoria slid back to the couch with all the grace of a ballerina. 

“You were telling me about your sister… Daphne,” Hermione encouraged but her gaze was on Snape, promising him swift and terrible retribution. He narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Daphne… she is punctual.” Astoria sounded uneasy for the first time since she had arrived. “Dependable.”

“Do not lie,” Severus snarled. 

“For the most part,” Astoria corrected herself in one breath.

Hermione dipped her quill in ink. It was red. No wonder he feels a kinship with the vampires, she though for the umpteenth time, though she was beginning to realise that it could also be because, just like them, he was scorned, judged and found wanting. Her wrath started to dampen. 

It took well over an hour to finish the letter of recommendation. Whatever Astoria had to say about her sister, Snape would cut in, correcting and directing. Astoria gave in each time without a fight, only offering carefully worded suggestions to his amendments every now and then. It had gotten old fast, Astoria’s meekness exasperating Hermione until she started to understand this was not what her attitude was. Being in Gryffindor, she was used to Snape being disdained and called names not regarded with high esteem, like a revered mentor whose opinion actually mattered. 

When Astoria left, Hermione ran after her into the street. “I’ll talk him round helping you with your boyfriend’s family,” she promised, though she had no idea how she was going to accomplish that. Severus’ warning about giving Astoria false hope rang into her ears. 

The gratitude on that sublime face was a little much, Astoria’s eyes glittering happily, Hermione’s letter clutched in her right hand. “I could never repay you for your kindness… Hermione.”

Hermione looked at the aristocratic woman with cameo brooch features standing in the middle of the broken cobble street, the stench of old industrial residue particularly potent this early in the morning. It made for such a stark contrast with how Astoria had behaved towards Snape inside the run-down working class house behind them. 

“If you want to repay me, please never mention repayment again,” Hermione replied. 

Astoria smiled primly. “That is an interesting piece of circular reasoning.” She curtsied. Here she was, standing on the edge of the bad side of Cokeworth, Nowhere, and she was curtsying. “Again I apologise for barging in like I did. I wish you and the Professor a wonderful day.” She waved her wand whispering Accio. Her broom flew in out of nowhere. Astoria sat on it sideways and a moment later, she took flight. 

TBC


	16. Three Can Keep A Secret

Astoria was careful where she put her feet on the muddy trail advancing within the forest. She slipped a few times but persevered. Draco came into view from behind a thick, old oak, his black and grey robes standing in stark contrast with the gold and red of autumn. He was at her side in an instant and enveloped her into a tight hug.

“Did you managed to pass our findings to Professor Snape?” he said after they exchanged a brief kiss.

“Yes, I slipped them to him while his wife was busy writing the letter for Daphne?”

Draco corked a brow. “Granger was there? So she agreed to write that latter for Daphne. I told you she is a bleeding heart.”

Astoria curved her hands in the upper sleeves of his robes, clinging to him. His lean, strong body was warm and an anchor. “We should be more careful with the visits to the Professor,” she opined.

He frowned. “Because of Granger?”

“I think I interrupted something.”

Draco drew back with a horrified grimace plastered onto his handsome face. “I hope you are not implying what I suspect you are. Because if you are, I might just have to obliviate myself.”

“They are man and wife, Draco. Do you truly believe they sleep in separate beds?”

“For my sanity, I have to. It’s not like that, Astoria. I know people marry for a variety of reasons and not always because they want to.” His face darkened and he hesitated before adding. “But also because they have to. This is different, however.”

She released him, looking at him dubiously. “This won’t because Hermione is muggle-born.”

He gave her a stern look. “Don’t put words I haven’t said in over a year in my mouth, Astoria. It has nothing to do with blood. Gryffindors and Slytherins don’t mix.”

“Maybe in the past not but things are changing now.”

“They don’t have to change,” he warned. “They won.”

# # #

Hermione stood before her husband’s house at Spinner’s End staring into the cloudy skies into which Astoria had flown, thinking. Going inside to confront Severus about his refusal to assist Astoria with the Malfoys could only lead to explosive consequences. She would be better off giving them both some time to cool off. She decided to go exploring, ignoring the crawling of her skin at the thought.

She had been in some unpleasant places during the war but that had been war, an exceptional situation. In peacetime, Hermione felt just how acutely out of place she was in an area like this. She was the type that walked through nice, benign neighbourhoods and went to skiing vacations on the continent, not wander up and down the derelict streets of agonizing industrial Midlands towns.

Spinner’s End ended with Severus Snape’s house. Beyond it sprawled the open country side but the sight was anything but idyllic. The field consisted of what looked like overgrown garden plots that were now littered with rubbish. She knew what these were, she had read about it. Local residents had had to use them to grow vegetables in exchange for a peppercorn rent but as the area had grown increasingly deserted, the allotments had clearly been abandoned too. She wondered if Severus had worked with his family on such a lot as a boy. Was this how he had spent his summers even back when he had studied at Hogwarts?

She turned and strolled away from the countryside and deeper into the town. There was a river near Spinner’s End, a pathway bordering it as it wound down. The foul smell that permeated the air seemed to emanate from its dirty waters. The banks were no different from the open field past Spinner’s End: they were overgrown and rubbish infested. She turned to glance to the disused mill chimney that rose slim and grim above the depressing landscape, its spire lost to the low-hanging ashen skies. Sparse wisps of milky mist floated above the black waters of the river. Everything was quiet and still. Hermione felt like she was standing at the sight of a nuclear cataclysm, the last person left alive in the world.

Pulling her jacket tighter around her body to ward off the chill of the morning, she followed the river back into town. She had to walk for well over ten minutes before the sounds of life reached her ears. Four young men were coming from the opposite direction, their clothes filthy and their steps uncertain. Hermione shoved her hands in her pockets, her right one gripping her wand, and lowered her gaze, careful not to make eye contact. The boarded windows of Spinner’s End flashed into her mind. Of course, vagrancy and drug use were an issue in a place like this. She wasn’t afraid, though. The most dangerous man around here was her husband. The men called a few lewd comments after her, obviously aware that she didn’t belong here, but didn’t follow as she quickened her step in the direction from which they had come.

The streets knotted into an uneven maze and she was soon lost but with her ability to apparate, she wasn’t really worried, especially as she soon discovered a fish and chips place. She made a mental note of its location and went inside. Their coffee was half decent and she could get cream and sugar. She asked about the nearest shop and got directions to a nearby mini market.

# # #

She apparated back at Severus’ house, her arms full of grocery bags. When she went in, she found him bent over his desk by the window, his dark, oily hair falling over his face like a curtain. She realised he had to have his nose close to the parchment he was scribbling on as was his wont, and smiled fondly, taking advantage of the fact that he could not see her. She uttered a cheerful greeting, telling him where she had gone, but his only response was a non-committal grunt.

She flitted into the kitchen where she started to put away the results of her brief shopping stint, rising thick clouds of dust from the cabinets as she did. She even had to kill a few spiders but still was relieved. She had come across no rats, mice or bats. She was careful with the drawer that had a broken handle but still managed to pull the lower one out completely. She jumped away at the last minute in order to avoid a crushed foot and then used her wand to put it back in its place.

There was something of a time-worn kitchen counter stretched over the short row of drawers and cabinets which she figured she could use as a table. She wiped it clean and set onto making breakfast. She wasn’t much of a cook, though the war had taught her a little of that particular surviving skill as well, but magic made everything that much easier. What was harder was trying not to dwell on how domestic this felt.

She fried eggs sunny side up and sausages with a handful of mushrooms and sliced tomatoes and made toast for the butter and jam she had bought. She also put on the kettle, grateful that she had gotten sugar and milk for the tea. Then she distributed the food on two plates. She was about to call for him when she whirled around and saw him standing in the doorway, tall and dark, a familiarly displeased scowl etched onto his pallid face.

“I made breakfast,” she pointed out. “I was just about to come and ask you to join me.”

“Why?” he asked coldly.

“Because we need to eat in order to keep from keeling over,” she teased with a half-smile.

It was the wrong thing to say. She recognized that glare. It was the _suffer my displeasure_ glare. “What is this?”

“Food,” she tried again. “I’m sure you are familiar with the concept.” She pushed the stool closer to the counter as she spoke. “Come sit. I promise I don’t have rabies.”

“This is my house,” he countered.

“Is eating forbidden in your house? I thought we should have eat something before we start on the Infieri set loose in the Muggle world.”

“Should you not be at the Ministry by now?”

“Enough good-natured banter then.” She shrugged. “I’ll apparate to my flat later and contact Kingsley through the Floo and let him know I need a few more days to discover what you have been up to. That should give us some time to investigate before I reveal your _affair_.”

He darted back into the sitting room and came back with a vinyl stool which he pushed next to the one already in the kitchen. “I see the habits Potter and Weasley had gotten you into while at Hogwarts might actually be of some use this time.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered as she poured them both tea.

One of his brows lifted quizzically, his eyes glinting. Now that she had admitted to falling for him, she gave herself permission to notice that was actually adorable.

“Are you referring to when you stole from my supplies during your second year?”

Hermione felt the blush creep across her cheeks. “I should have realised you would figure that one out.”

“I saw the after-effects in the hospital ward,” he pointed out shaking his head when she attempted to offer him milk and sugar.

“You brewed the potion that reversed my change… into a cat, didn’t you? That’s why it took so long.”

The corners of his mouth raised a little, as he busied himself cautiously cutting a bit of sausage. “When I suspected Potter of doing it again in your fourth year, I decided I would no longer stand for it.”

“That wasn’t Harry,” she said before chewing on a forkful of eggs. “It was me who set you on fire during Harry’s first quidditch match the first year, though.”

His head spun in her direction so far he might as well be auditioning for The Exorcist. “I beg your pardon?”

“I thought you were jinxing Harry’s broom,” she defended.

“I was uttering counter-curses, you, half-wit,” he barked.

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“In the six years you three brats were at Hogwarts, I was set on ablaze, bitten by a three-headed dog, almost mauled by a werewolf, my storage was plundered and I had to risk my position as a spy high within the Dark Lord’s ranks by teaching your thick-headed friend Occlumency, lessons he spent snooping around my office instead of learning something, might I stress. All this in addition to attempting to keep you, dunderheads, from blowing yourselves up during Potions class. Yet you were the ones who acted as though you were being mistreated by me.”

“You called me an insufferable know-it-all for six years,” she said with a smile and a sip of her tea.

“Only because you are one.”

“It takes one to know one,” she parried, snatching a slice of toast to butter it up. “Do you want jam too? I didn’t know which one you prefer but it wasn’t like they had much of a selection anyway so I got strawberry and orange.”

He looked at her with his brows wrinkled in confusion. “Why are you acting as though you were my wife all of the sudden?”

“If I were acting as though I’m your wife, I wouldn’t have slept alone last night.” The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. Apparently, he didn’t need Veritaserum to get the truth out of her.

His expression soured instantly. Hermione made a mental note to put flirting on the list of things not to be tried with him. On the footsteps of that thought came another one, far more disturbing. What if she disgusted him? Hermione had noted quite a few heads turning when she passed by these days, having grown some curves that distracted from the wild mess of her hair, but that didn’t mean anything with Snape. Perhaps he truly found her personality off-putting and her intellect not profound enough to be worthy of his attention. Or perhaps it was the fact that she was not Lily Evans Potter that was the insurmountable obstacle. Her night-time ruminations came back to her. Falling for him was a terrible idea indeed.

Then she noticed the tiny bites he was taking and all other considerations flew out the window. He looked just as neglected as his house. She found herself pushing the platter of toast towards him in hopes of getting him to eat more.

“Why would you not help Astoria with the Malfoys?” she asked after a brief, charged pause. “You have leverage over them. They need you more than you need them, which is not at all.”

He scraped with his knife and fork against the plate in an obviously deliberate manner. “How very Slytherin of you!”

“I don’t understand what the problem. Is Astoria Greengrass not Pure-Blood?”

“She is. Her family is one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.”

“Then why do they object to her?”

“The war changed Miss Greengrass and her sister. They no longer so readily believe that Muggles are scum, as they have been educated to.”

Hermione couldn’t believe her ears. “That’s it?”

“You have to understand Lucius and Narcissa have been indoctrinated into the superiority of the Pure-Bloods since birth. They might not have had the stomach for the atrocities usually expected of Death Eaters unlike, say, someone like Narcissa’s sister, but one does not easily relinquish life-long beliefs. They fear that if Draco marries Astoria, she would not educate their children into the family convictions, that before long the new generations of Malfoys would marry Half-Bloods, Muggle-born or even Muggles.”

“That would be terrible,” she said sarcastically. “You can’t possibly agree with this insanity.”

“Whether I agree or not is irrelevant to Lucius and Narcissa. Perhaps she could be impressed upon in time but Lucius would be much more difficult, if not impossible, to sway. I cannot change the Malfoys’ mind. It is Draco who needs to decide?”

“On what?”

“On whether he wishes to remain the boy his father raised or finally become a man.”

“That makes sense,” she mumbled, staring at his profile. His nose gave him a certain aristocratic dignity she had failed to notice before.

“Of course it does,” he said sardonically. “Why are you suddenly so keen on the happiness of your former school time nemesis?”

“Because I am trying to grow up and out of old school grudges.”

He snorted, the sound filled with derision. “Even if they are against Slytherins?”

“Until a few centuries ago, when Muggle kings and queens ended a war, they would often cement the new peace with an alliance through marriage.”

“We had to marry because we were drunk and stupid one night.”

“So you see why I feel like rewriting history.”

His lips twitched with that familiar half smile. He picked up his now empty plate and cup and went to the sink. Despite her efforts, he had eaten no buttered toast. She regretted not piling up even more food on his plate. He rolled back the sleeves of his coat with deft, methodical moves then he unbuttoned his shirt cuff buttons and rolled the white sleeves up his thin, pale wrists barely covered in sparse, black hair with prominent blue veins. She watched him unabashedly until, probably sensing her gaze on him, he whipped his head around and their eyes met across the short space between them. She lowered her gaze to her own plate quickly.

“Have you found anything new on the creature Voldemort let loose in the Muggle world?”

“No,” he rumbled, his tone betraying an ounce of frustration. “But I know where it will be this time next week.”

She frowned, chewing on her lower lip in thought. “On the first night of Hunter’s Moon. It enhances certain magic acts.”

He switched on the tap to wash his plate. “Speak to Kingsley. After you return, if you agree to an obliviate charm, I will tell you everything, including how vampires fit into all of this.”

“I agree,” she replied without hesitation.

“We shall see.” He dried his plate and mug with a towel then put them back in their place.

# # #

Her talk with Kingsley was uneventful and she returned to Severus rather fast. She found him at his desk, looking over the beautiful crimson book she had admired the night before. She drew closer, excited to finally get her hands on the alluring tome.

“I am ready,” she told him firmly.

He stood, holding the tome in one hand. “You may extract the memory of what I will tell you but I must insist that I shall be the one to keep it. I will return it to you if and when I judge it opportune.”

“All right.”

He didn’t bother hiding his scepticism, his inky black eyes blazing.

Hermione sighed. “Fine. Take a look.” She gestured to her forehead, tensing only a little and careful to shove the feelings she had for him to the back of her mind. She wasn’t anywhere near ready for him to know yet. “Check if I am lying.”

His wand showed up as if out of nowhere and he pointed it at her. “Legilimens.”

His press into her head was quick, touching only the surface of her recent state of mind, just enough for him to ascertain if she had any hidden agenda. She lowered what little Occlumency walls she had resisting the urge to pull him deeper, the promise of his mind electrifying. He drew back instantaneously, seeming satisfied that she was sincere.

He handed her the book without another word. Hermione ran her hand reverently over the soft leather cover. She retreated to the couch, no longer caring that is was uncomfortable, and opened it carefully, burying her nose in it for a quick sniff. It smelled as amazing as she had anticipated, of leafy, old paper and bitter leather. The book was a work of art: the blood red, elaborate calligraphy was interrupted in places by small, colourful lithographies depicting pale, gaunt creatures with prominent fangs and extravagant clothes. She squinted, managing to decipher a Latin like word here and there.

“What language is this?” she asked, intent on extracting as much information about the treasure in her hands as possible, even if he was going to obliviate her afterwards. At least for a few minutes she would know.

“Romanian,” he replied.

“This… this is from Transylvania, isn’t it?” she pressed on, tracing her finger over the depiction of a smoky grey castle. She thought she had recognized the Bran castle which she had once seen in one of wizarding world’s sparse books on vampires.

“It is a history of Transylvanian vampires from the year 1,000 onwards,” he droned, his voice low and silky. He seated himself in his armchair fastidiously, gathering his robes around his neck for his customary bat impersonation. His scowl held a sneering note that was all too familiar.

She buried her nose deeper in the book to hide her spying on him. Her fingers gripped onto the spine tighter lest some long suppressed instinct flared to life and pushed her to raise her hand before she spoke. The last thing she wanted was to remind him of the schoolgirl she had been. Though the years at Hogwarts had taught her something about him: hard to please did not even begin to describe him. Again she had to wonder if he found her revolting. Or perhaps too young. Teenage insecurities stepped over each other to rear their ugly heads.

“Did a vampire open a gateway to another world before?” she inquired, puzzling over the secret he was trying to hide.

He shot her a sharp glare. “Of course not, you silly girl.”

“It’s not so easy when you cannot take points from Gryffindors any more, is it?” she said.

The brow went up. “Vampires do not possess magic,” he lectured.

“Excuse if my DADA books were of two minds about it and that resentful, angry teacher I had during my sixth year failed to enlighten us either way.”

“That resentful, angry teacher could only do so much in a single year, especially since he had to waste precious time with supremely astute answers about the transparency of ghosts. Besides, even if I had managed to cram that particular titbit in, you would have been the first to ask me how I knew as much.”

“How did you know as much?” she asked teasingly.

He snarled. “None of your business.”

“You didn’t know back then.” She grinned, guessing from his sour expression that she was on the right track. It didn’t mean anything, of course. There was preciously little information on vampires and not even he could know everything.

“I wonder if it is perhaps possibly to give you detention retroactively,” he rumbled, his voice low and dark and positively intoxicating.

All right, she had given herself too much permission to like him. Forget potions, all he needed to do in order to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses was speak in that spellbinding baritone of his. She all but jumped out of her skin when his shadow loomed over her. She raised her eyes and they travelled up a whirl of black robes to his forbidding expression curtained by his equally dark hair. He looked even more bat like as he was looking down at her past his large, aquiline nose.

“Make a noise before you move,” she squeaked.

“You are far too entranced by that book,” he quipped. “I have called your attention twice already.”

Hermione pressed the tome to her chest defensively. “Give us a few more moments, will you? You are going to take my memory of it away soon.”

He leaned forward like a cloaked vampire raising out of his coffin. “Turn to page 401.”

“This’d better not be about werewolves,” she murmured under her breath. The bottom of her stomach dropped when she saw the illustration that took up a quarter of a page. “Is this a Dementor?”

“It would appear so,” he replied haughtily and leaned even closer, his movements swift and soundless, resting a hand on the arm of the couch next to her.

Hermione blinked, her heart rhythm picking up. She was suddenly grateful that all the Hogwarts born rumours about him being a vampire were false. He smelled of the bitterness of his morning coffee, freshly cut herbs and the lemon of his soap. And he was entirely too close, a few black strands falling haphazardly in his face, though his eyes were fixed on the page with the drawing of what looked suspiciously like a Dementor.

“That’s not possible,” she said after swallowing over a dry throat. “Dementors were first encountered in the fortress of Azkaban during the 15th century. Here it says that they were present in the late 1200s in Transylvania.”

He drew back and to full height before beginning to pace methodically on the carpet before her. “Around that time a local dark wizard by the name of Dobromir started hunting vampires for sport. When the covens in the Carpathians range came together to defend themselves from him and his allies, he began spreading rumours that he was under an unprovoked attack by the vampires and requested help in defending himself. He received aid from all over Europe almost immediately. And yes, that included England. By then, however, the time for explanations had passed. Terrified that they were facing a purge, the vampires stormed the hide-out of Dobromir and his new friends. They incurred heavy losses but they came close to prevailing one night. In a panic, Dobromir must have thought opening a gateway to another world was the only way to save himself. The surviving vampires describe a cluster of dark wraiths descending upon them but leaving them untouched.”

“Dementors can only feed on living human beings,” she observed. “Dobromir and his allies must have fallen prey to his own scheme.”

He ceased pacing to stare straight at her, his ebony eyes filled with the fervour of interest. She had seen that look a few times before in DADA class.

“The account mentions something else attempting to break through into our world… something that frightened even the vampires. There is no description for the being, only a name of sorts. Umbra… Shadow.”

“Dementors came from another world,” she realised. “Of course! They are unlike any magic beings or Dark creatures that we know of. They are a species onto their own. If they came from another dimension, then we can send them back there.”

“No,” he said, his voice again soft and dangerous. “Do you not see? Are your know-it-all faculties failing you once more? Even if you could open the gateway safely, which you cannot, or close it easily, which again you cannot, this world and the creatures in it frightened Voldemort into slamming the door onto a potential undefeatable weapon. This is not stealing Polyjuice ingredients or sneaking around the corridors of Hogwarts to form a clandestine students’ association. Opening this gateway for a third time could lead to a global magical cataclysm. Having Dementors and even this… Umbra into our world is a far preferable outcome.”

She turned the page as his voice was rising, agitation creeping in his tone, while his speech was winding down. She couldn’t decipher much of the strange, pseudo Gothic writing. “I don’t understand. If the vampires were simply defending themselves against Dobromir, why would they want this hidden?” she asked once he finished speaking.

“Because once they realised the Dementors could not harm them, they ripped Dobromir and the rest of the surviving wizards and witches to pieces and burnt down the castle, destroying all evidence of what had occurred there. Our history only marks their disappearance, which until now was attributed to the scarcity of documents prior to the creation of the Ministries of Magic and the International Confederation of Wizards. However, if the truth is to be revealed, it would be the vampires’ word against the rumours spread by Dobromir prior to his demise.”

“And against the widespread prejudice against them,” she added quietly. “They could be accused of mass-murdering wizards and witches. There would be a cry for the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans to change. More so than there already is.” She shut the book that now felt unnaturally heavy where it rested on her knees. The entire Muggle world was at the mercy of a creature that terrified vampires and dark wizards. “If the threat of the Umbra spreads, this will come out, anyway.”

“Not necessarily,” he said ominously. He padded to her in a billow of tar black robes. He grasped back the book and held out an empty phial instead. “I think it best that I extracted the memory.”

She wanted to protest but his obvious distrust caused her a split second of indecision. It was enough for him to press the tip of his wand to her temple and lock eyes with her. She felt the push as he skidded across the surface of her mind. He afforded her little courtesy, as he gripped at the memory and drew it out. The touch of his mind was cold and brusque. Hermione experienced an acute sense of loss. She felt used, the carelessness she had perceived from him leaving her chilled to the bone. The plea for him to stop was on the tip of her tongue but she didn’t get to voice it. The second the silvery strand coiled against the glass walls of the vial, his wand came up.

“Obliviate.”

# # #

Severus slipped out of the back door quietly and slunk into the coal shed. During the first summer after becoming a Hogwarts professor, he had cleaned the outbuilding and using a blend of shrinking and adjusting spells, he had managed to arrange a tiny potions lab complete with a bit of a store. It was utterly modest compared to what he had had at school but this one was his and his alone. Though the thick wood door didn’t look like much and he had to fold himself almost in half to get in, there were powerful wards around the place, enough to gravely injure anyone other than him attempting to enter. Over time he had added a Pensieve to the collection of things he kept there.

He went in and lit up the shed with a silent Lumos spell. The walls were lined with jar-filled shelves. He swirled the vial with Hemione’s memory between his fingers as he contemplated what he was about to do. On one hand, it felt like a violation, on the other, he had clearly sensed she was hiding something twice that day. He could have found out easily by forcing her measly Occlumency walls but then he would have lost the strategic element of being aware of her having a secret.

Hesitating only once more, he poured the memory into the Pensieve and dipped his head in. The memory was as straight-forward as expected but right before he had taken it, she had removed an element of it. The attrition was odd, almost like an instinctual reaction. She was protecting something hidden in her mind, something that had escaped his well-honed spy skills.

Muttering an expletive under his breath, he recapped the memory. He had committed a crucial mistake in underestimating his wife. She was performed the rare feat of deceiving him. She had obviously volunteered the information about Kingsley having her spy on him as a distraction and he had been too side-tracked by her memories of torture to catch her in the act. Clearly Hermione was not as naive as he had believed her to be. Apparently he was the naive one. He was either rusty or without Dumbledore to manipulate him with the memory of Lily, he had fallen for the oldest feint the book: a tremor of tearful feminine eye-lashes.

He grew even more irritated with his weakness when he recalled that he had allowed her to return to her flat to contact the Minister. Who knew what she had relayed? Had she seen Astoria pass him the scroll while Hermione’s back was turned to them? Were Aurors arresting Astoria just now? Astoria was a fragile piece of china. Azkaban would kill her in under a week. He needed to convey a message to Draco and then he would deal with his wife.

At nightfall, he left his shoes in the kitchen and went up the staircase. Hiding from his father’s wrath had taught him where to place his feet so that the creaky, old steps would make no noise under his weight. He entered his own room silently, not needing any light to find his way. He listened. Hermione’s breathing was steady and deep. She was asleep. In the dark he could only perceive her form in his bed. He waved his wand above her, whispering Legilimens under his breath.

Her inexperience showed in that that her Occlumency walls were not present in her slumber. Come morning she wouldn’t even know that he had been in her mind. Without her resistance it didn’t take him long to find it. He withdrew carefully, though he was so angry he could barely see straight.

TBC


	17. The Bond

He would not be used. Not again! Never again! For most of his life he had two masters. To both he had been a blunt instrument, utilized to spy, betray and kill. Disdained and scorned. Nothing more than a Death Eater in the eyes of both. His life had meant nothing to Voldemort. His soul had meant nothing to Dumbledore. Voldemort had dangled belonging and acceptance and appreciation to him like a carrot, while Dumbledore had employed the memory of Lily. His two secret, most fervent wishes exposed and squeezed dry of blood like the wrung carcass of an abandoned heart. To them he had been an attack dog ordered to bite on command, his concerns dismissed with pain by Voldemort and callous reminders by Dumbledore. He was not in the market for another master.

Fury rose in him in thick waved that threatened to choke him. He was shaking with it. Old and new. The impotent fury at the mental picture of the boy he had been hiding under his very bed, terrified that his father had seen the result of a burst of his wild, untrained magic or that he had come home drunk or that he was screaming at his mother in their bedroom just next door. Fury spiced with humiliation at being hung upside down in front of other students and stripped to his tarnished underwear. Forced and defenceless while everybody laughed. Funny, little Snivellus immobilized in an unnatural position as the Marauders were undressing him!

Fury at Muggles because his father hated his weird, magic little boy. Fury at the look in Lily’s parents’ eyes. They had been kind on the few occasions Lily had brought him home but their gaze spoke what only Petunia dared voice: that they didn’t want like their lovely and clean daughter spending time with the greasy oddball from Spinner’s End. Fury at himself when he came home to the police tape and the whispers of his ever dwindling neighbours to find his mother’s dried blood painting the kitchen floor. Fury at being ignored, alone, unseen, judged a monster before even making the fateful choice. If they wanted a monster, he would give them one. And then, they would see, they would all see. He had wanted to show them all but in the end, he had only managed to prove them right about him.

Despairing fury when the Dark Lord refused to listen to his pleas for Lily’s life. Despairing fury as he promised Dumbledore anything if he would just keep them safe. As if this wasn’t Dumbledore’s job, anyway. Weren’t the Potters his? It mattered not. Fair or not, he would promise, he would throw whatever wretched remains there were of his life and soul at the older wizard’s feet if only he would keep them safe.

But Dumbledore didn’t keep them safe. And Lily died, anyway. Oh, the despairing fury when she died, anyway. Fury at being forced back into his own personal hell, entrusted with children. What was he to do with children and as Head of a House, to boot? Was Dumbledore mad? Dumbledore had been all he had, though, so he bore his scorn and the constant reminders, even as a small part of him yearned for the Headmaster’s affection and respect. He hated himself for it but could not help himself, watching Dumbledore behave like a father to scores of students. All but him. Because he was wrong and twisted and the darkness in him threatened to overwhelm the meagre light he had left. He didn’t deserve anything from anyone, least of all, Dumbledore. He was good for one thing and one thing only: to kill on command.

He could still feel the darkness encroaching. He still felt the rip in his soul from Dumbledore’s murder. He could create a Horcrux with it, if he so wished. He turned around and left the room with a sleeping Hermione as quietly as he had slipped in. Only a madman like Voldemort wanted to live forever. He had been angry when he had killed Dumbledore. Angry that after all this time such a thing could be asked of him. Angry that, no matter what he did, he was still the monster. And angry at himself for being willing to be that. Again. After all this time.

In the bathroom he chanced a look at himself in the mirror. He was a monster, hideous inside and out. His fists curled tighter and he realised he was holding his wand in his right one. He remembered the dark thoughts he had entertained in his old bedroom. Thoughts only a monster could possess. He ached to take out his suffocating fury on Hermione. If it was a Dark Lord the Ministry wanted, it was a Dark Lord he would give them! He would make an example of their precious Gryffindor princess, the prim and pure and perfect Golden Trio heroine Kingsley had so carelessly cast to him like a lamb sent to the slaughter. What was Kingsley thinking? He was smart enough to recognize that Severus was no tame lion so send Hermione to him like that? Hadn’t she been through enough during the war? Couldn’t Kingsley see that the spy who had fooled Voldemort would see right through her petty sleuthing? If Kingsley suspected Severus of Dark Lord ambitions, why couldn’t he comprehend what he would to her if he caught her?

Severus, of all people, could do untold harm without laying a single finger on someone. He had learnt as much at the feet of his first master, Voldemort. There would be nothing left of Hermione Granger’s vaunted mind, when he was done with her. Dumbledore had sent him to do worse in much the same manner. If was not surprise Kingsley was emulating his role model. However, Severus had chosen his fate: he had been a Death Eater first and only then a spy, desperate to recoup his terrible guilt, though, knowing whatever he did would never be enough. But Hermione had done nothing wrong. She had been Sorted into the right House, befriended and helped the Chosen One, fought on the right in the war. And she had the scars to prove it, both literally and figuratively. She didn’t deserve to be tossed a mad dog to render her.

His mother’s screams rang in his ears and he cringed and slunk back into the sitting room, still shaking, the fingers of his right hand gripping his wand so tightly his knuckles started to ache. How could they all do this? How could Dumbledore have asked that of him? If he had been so concerned about Draco’s soul, why hadn’t he just killed himself? Why was he always the one who had to fracture his soul and drench himself in blood so that the rest could remain clean? He collapsed onto the couch and finally put his wand away.

The image of the that small, yellowing sprout dying in the middle of a garden of sublime, healthy lilies seemed burned onto the back of his mind. He hadn’t even needed to go looking for it. It had been right at the surface of Hermione’s mind, as she clung to it, keeping the bond she had accused him of implanting into her mind as a sort of backdoor access, alive. He had drawn back in an instant, more furious with himself than with her. He had believed her. He had allowed her to touch him. If he concentrated, he could still feel small, warm hand on his face. He had brought her into his mind for comfort.

The lilies bothered him the most. He knew it was his fault, he had planted them there while attempting to help Hermione sleep. He was all too familiar with insomnia and he had felt for her, so young, so vulnerable and pained, a child soldier pluck out of school and thrust into a war. But if she had done the decent thing and let the bond agonize to the death, the lilies would have died with it. The lilies were his. She had no right. A memory was all he had of Lily. Contorted by guilt and regret and by that… _word._ Haunted by her eyes in the face of James Potter. But a memory, nonetheless. His!

He leapt to his feet and returned to his makeshift potion lab in the backyard. He removed his robe and hung it by the curved nail protruding from the wood of the door. Once he was only in his white shirt, did he lit a fire under the cauldron at the centre of the small, slanted-roofed room. He let his mind go blank as he focused solely on the methodical steps he needed to take for brewing. He took out one of the three frozen Ashwinder egg he had left and tossed one into the cauldron then added horseradish and slowly heated them. Ashwinder eggs were too precious to waste and any tiny slip would render the potion useless, unless he gave it his undivided attention.

Hermione and fury melted off him as he juiced a quill bulb, added it to the cauldron and stirred. He felt his blood cool and his mind order again, as the task he was performing took over his faculties. He stirred and chopped and ground and poured in ingredients and stirred again. The air was getting stuffy and cloying with the searing scent of boiling plants and eggs but he paid it no heed. The thick scents were familiar, soothing. Finally he used a fine needle to portion a few flickers of a dried petal of Thaumatagoria, his own contribution to Zygmunt Budge’s legendary recipe for Felix Felicis and stirred the potion again slowly. The vapour blew towards his face and he was careful to turn away. Inhaling the vapours could bring about a bit of an euphoric effect. He waved his wand over the potion to form an eight and whispered: _Felixempra._

He put out the fire and waited for the foggy liquid to clear. It did, forming the familiar molten gold hue, a few drops springing upwards from the surface. He cast a stasis spell, as satisfaction at a job well-done spread warmly in his bones. He was tired and his back muscles protested the hours spent in a hunched position as he had made the potion. He was hot and sweaty, his hair matted with it. Yet his mind was still, so much so that he was confident sinking into, pulling up his Occlumency walls one by one, searching each brick and nook for potential gaps but they were intact. He strengthened a few of them on his way. There was absolutely no trace of Hermione having slipping in through the bond. Realistically, he was well aware that she lacked the Legilimency skills and experience for it, however, it couldn’t hurt to verify.

Mental links were rare and something of a taboo in the wizarding world, for mind magic had ties to the Dark Arts, was notoriously difficult to perform and complicated to control. Most Death Eaters had shied from it too. But to Severus, it was as natural as breathing. While his father had not been not home, his mother had taken to teaching him a bit about magic, including Occlumency and Legilimency. She had done so hoping it would help him hide his abilities from his father, her own clumsy attempt at protecting him, since she could not shield him from Tobias’ fists any more than she could shield herself.

He found his own neglected end of the bond. As expected, it was dead. He had starved and crushed it under the might of his Occlumency abilities from the moment of its unfortunate creation. He hadn’t even felt it languish. It was simply gone. Unlike in Hermione’s mind there was no imagery attached to it, nothing but a fading scar. He razed it off with a simple mutation of a single Occlumency wall but that meant nothing to the end Hermione was struggling to cultivate in her mind. If her Legilimency skills were to advance, in time it would provide her with an insidious way into his head. If and when it did, he was certain he could counter it but why expose himself? He didn’t want anyone and anything foreign in his mind. Fury threatened to reassert itself but he was ready for it this time and pushed it into its dark corner with ease.

It was light outside by the time he returned to the house, his robe draped over one arm. The staircase was creaking, the sound echoing in the domineering stillness. He heard her move in the bathroom as his fury began to mount again, rattling at his walls with the menace of ancient insecurities and doubts. Instinctively he flung a false memory he had implanted himself at it but it was easier to fool the Dark Lord than it was to fool himself. He wanted to flee. _Coward,_ called the voice of his own consciousness, and his ire spiked even more.

“Severus.”

He looked up to see her in the kitchen doorway, dressed in a striped yellow and cream pyjamas, hair a halo of restless brown around her face, a pinpoint of light against the darkness of his house that was sunken into shadows even on the brightest of days. She didn’t belong any more than Lily would have belonged here. Even as a hopelessly naive teenager, he had had the rare moments of clarity when he had understood: a beautiful, lively, popular girl from the nicer side of Cokeworth like her would never choose the poor, misshaped son of Tobias Snape of Spinner’s End, the Marauders’ official punching bag. He had had nothing to offer her and even if he had, even if he had come by the Prince inheritance back then, he would still be him. So he had never told his best friend, his only friend, that his love for her had changed, had grown into something else. All he had wanted was to remain her friend, to see her on occasion. He had ruined even that with one word. He always ruined everything.

Hermione slid closer, her bare feet padding on the cold floor. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought that was concern that troubled her wide, gaping eyes. His wand was in his hand before he realised what he was doing. He sliced the air with it like a whip.

“Legilimens.”

She hadn’t had time to put up her walls, not that they would have stopped him. All he caught from her was bewilderment before he stood by the pitiful sprout sticking out painfully amid the beauty of the lilies. Hermione was there, beside him, her face white as a sheet of pristine Muggle paper.

“Now who keeps secret keys to whose mind?” he taunted, proud of how cool and steady his voice sounded, his contempt all too evident in it.

“Your end of the bond is closed,” she said. “I could have never used it to invade your mind. Voldemort himself was tripped by your Occlumency walls.”

“That did not prevent you from trying, did it?” he bit back, hearing the venom reverberate in his voice. “You possessed an alternative for when I caught you spying on me.”

She raised her chin, her stance radiating Gryffindor defiance, despite the fact that she was dressed in the same pyjamas she wore in reality. “I was the one who volunteered that information or don’t you remember? I promised to help you against Umbra.”

“While you would be reporting every word to the Ministry no doubt.”

“You’re paranoid,” she spat.

“Says the woman who set one of her professors on fire because she thought he was trying to throw her friend off a broom.”

“One of our professors was indeed jinxing Harry’s broom,” she shouted.

“While I was uttering counter-curses.” His voice slipped a quarter of an octave higher, despite his best intentions. He held himself back, rooting his walls even more firmly into place.

“I’m not trying to keep the connection between our minds alive to spy on you,” she said, lowering her gaze to the sprout swaying gently in the wind.

“Would you believe me if I were the one making that claim?”

Her eyes snapped back to his and they were shining with unshed tears.

He folded himself over the little plant.

“No,” she yelled.

He pushed back at her, making her feel only an ember of decades of experience practising and studying Legilimency. To his surprise she pushed back. That she was untrained was no surprise but how frantic she was proved startling, because from the little he had gleaned of her mind, it was surprisingly orderly, especially for one so young. In his experience, youth meant a certain penchant for folly but it was absent in her. She tried to drag him away from the garden but he affixed himself securely to the spot. The azure skies above blackened and he felt the bite of a chilling current. The rich world inside her mind vibrated and whispered as it strained, in order to expel the intruder. He sensed that she had expanded upon the imagery he had left behind that night and his fury reared itself like a maelstrom threatening to draw them both under.

He tossed her into the bed of lilies as if he had aimed a well-timed Expelliarmus at her. She landed on her back, crushing some of the superb flowers under the weight of her body. He grasped at the slim stem of the young sprout with a hand and hesitated. The pain he would cause her by ripping out the bond would be quite terrible. The split second of indecision was enough. They were flung back into the sitting room, his robe still on his arm.

“Protego,” she said, her hand trembling around her wand.

“Legilimens,” he countered, uttering the word at same time as her.

It was in her mind that they entered. He made to reach for the sprout. Perhaps he could mitigate the damage by pulling it out slowly.

“No… please… stop! Severus… please.”

The words sparked something within him. The world whirled once and suddenly they were cast into his own mind, standing both atop the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts. Dumbledore was looking at him imploringly.

_Severus… please…._

They always begged, his victims, in his dreams, in his mind, in real life. Atop the Astronomy Tower the monster lifted his wand. Somewhere nearby someone was crying. Hermione was staring at Dumbledore from Severus’ memory with tears streaming down her horrified, ashen face.

_Avada kedavra…._

Her eyes filled with sorrowful anger as Dumbledore fell and she turned her head to look at him for one excruciating moment. Then she ran to the rim of the platform and jumped. He leapt after her on instinct. What was that foolhardy girl thinking? They landed back into the garden of lilies, the flowers intact, as if she had never fallen atop of them.

Hermione was curled around the sprout protectively. Before he had time to react, she grabbed the fragile looking stem with both hands and pulled it out viciously. The scream that followed was horrifying, like the final whine of a dying animal. The root of the plant greatly resembled that of the mandrake and it contorted into an all too human expression of pain as it shrieked once before it turned to dust and slipped through Hermione’s slender fingers.

The lilies rotted immediately, their decayed bodies unravelling as they fell to the blistering, cracking ground. A wound formed where Hermione had extracted the sprout and blood poured out of it in thick, red streams, the iron tinged smell of it filling the air. It cascaded on the ground like a fountain sprung from newly torn flesh. It stained Hermione’s pyjamas as she lay panting on the ground.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…. I know it was wrong of me to keep it…. I should have told you at least!”

To date she had apologised to him more than anyone he had ever met. In fact, he could hardly remember anyone else ever apologising to him. A bloody hand clung to the material of his trousers, pulling slightly.

“I didn’t know what else to do… or why I was doing it…. I was… I am confused….” Her mind started to pull at him, something in her dragging him deeper with an intensity bordering despair.

He let himself slip. The human mind was a fragile thing. Even the most skilled Legilimens had to be careful not to bruise it. Delving into one was not without complications and any Legilimens was hard pressed not to get lost inside and find whatever they were looking for accurately. And that was when dealing with people who weren’t in Hermione’s current unstable state. He emptied himself of emotion, bottling even the festering knot of his fury, summoning all of his Occlumency walls to aid him. At least one of them needed to be cool-headed for this. Then he slid through the open wound left behind by the sprout of their now defunct bond.

His world veered off orbit as he saw himself through Hermione’s eyes.

_Professor…. The residual desire for his approval left over from his years as her teacher…._

He huffed and she shrank back, shying away from him, some of her curls sticking out at odd angles, her nightclothes stained with blood, some of it dripping off her fingers.

_Traitor…. He killed Dumbledore! How could he?… I believed him… We trusted him… The Order trusted him… Dumbledore trusted him…. Harry was right…. He took over Hogwarts and perverted it, turned into something evil…._

_Hero… . He was protecting us… saving us… and I just stood and watched as he died on the floor of Shrieking Shack…. His blood—so much blood—is on all of us…._

His guilt was entirely misplaced but he couldn’t find it within himself to sneer at it, even if the oblivion and certainty of death had been all he had longed for during the last year of the war. He saw her at his trial next, her sense of justice rebelling at the notion of his being judged, despite his contribution to the war effort, a knot of mixed emotions spilling from her at the memories Potter had revealed in order to defend him.

_He was different…. That’s why they picked on him. Different, like I used to be in Muggle school. Different like I sometimes felt even at Hogwarts because I am…._

“Don’t think that word,” he rumbled.

She lowered her tearful gaze. “She could have forgiven you…. You weren’t yourself. You were hung upside down, being undressed in front of the whole school, for goodness’ sake. You didn’t know what you were saying.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” he shouted, as his grip on his emotions wavered. He pulled up a wall quickly. “You don’t understand.”

“I do understand,” she insisted.

He pressed in deeper, closer to the present day.

_Shame… confusion… and pity…. He grew up in this house?… I thought places like this no longer existed…. His father beat him…. His mother looks so sad, so lost in that photograph…. Was she even capable of properly taking care of him?_

“Silence, you fool! She did the best she could! You don’t know what it was like… what he was like.”

“Then tell me. I want to know.”

“Enough!”

He pushed in sharper in retaliation.

_Pale hands wrapped in warm sunlight…. Eyes like black embers…._ _Voice like velvet, rough and heady…._ _Attraction… Even more confusion…. Mind like an electric powerhouse…. How would his hands feel on m_ _y_ _body?…_ _The bed smelled like him…. Desire…. Self-doubt…. He would never want m_ _e_ _. He loves Lily. Always! I cannot compete with the perfect icon of her memory._

He jerked out of her mind abruptly, shaking with reaction.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your lovely, insightful comments on Chapter 16. I promise to answer them all soon.


	18. Selfish

Hermione leaned surreptitiously against the frame of the open kitchen door, her wand hand lowered. She was squinting, paler than when she had first came in but other than that looked unchanged. Severus guessed she had to have a bit of a lingering head-ached from the brutal way in which she had removed her end of their mental connection. He was wryly impressed. In he head, had caught glimpses of her recent research into mind magic, however, he knew from experience that one needed to be learned practically. Books, especially the few ones legally available on the matter, would have provided her with nothing but the most superficial and often flawed theoretical idea on the matter. For someone so untrained to maintain a mental bond with no visible signs of physical strain was nothing short of astonishing.

That concern, however, fell quickly to the side in the light of what she had invited him to see in her mind. The former teacher in him realised he should bring her something for her head-ache but he found himself arrested to the spot, staring at her. She was staring back, her wide, brown eyes boring into his, her wet gaze filled with a mix of hope and apprehension. He recognized it. He had been younger than her when he had felt it. By her age all his hopes and dreams had lain long dead but Hermione was still innocent, still holding onto ideals, and her fledgling feelings for him reflected it. There was a great deal of youthful exuberance in them and Severus knew what the right thing to do was just as well as he knew how to brew the perfect Draught of the Living Dead.

Severus tossed the robes form his arm onto the couch and took a measured step towards her, his wand hand refusing to go down, too. It was an infatuation, a young woman’s folly stemming from a mixture of compassion for the way he had grown up, burgeoning, misguided hero worship and an idealized view of him with few links to reality. It would pass. He knew it would. During his tenure as Head of Slytherin House, a few of his seventh year students had become fascinated upon realising he was far more powerful than he let on. It hadn’t meant anything, not even that they were seeking to connect themselves to a powerful wizard. Slytherins were attracted to power. It was in their nature. Being a Legilimens, it hadn’t been difficult to devise as much but he had never even had to let anyone down. The disgust as him physically had always done it for him. However, he had felt no such disdain from Hermione. On the contrary, much to his shock. He took another step towards her.

She was beautiful, standing in the mix of shadows and blurry early morning light spilling from the pitiful windows of his house. She resembled a Renoir painting, draped in the impressionist rays as she was. She was delicate yet not fragile, a smattering of rosy already returning to her cheeks, spreading on her fine-pored skin. He stopped right in front of her.

“Severus,” she finally spoke, her voice low and uncertain. “I… I don’t expect anything…. I know you are not interested…. I just wanted to show you I didn’t keep to bond in order to spy on you. I would never use you… not like _he_ did. What he asked you to do was monstrous. Lying to the Voldemort was one thing. It was dangerous sure but murder… murder tears the soul apart.” Tears sprang to her eyes and she began to tremble in earnest with what he recognized as fury. “Dumbledore had no right!” Her voice had risen almost all the way to a shout.

Her tears made him feel off-kilter in a way he hated. The last person to have cried over him had been his mother the first time his father had hit him. He had been five then. It hadn’t happened again. He crowded her against the door frame, hovering close to her, half expecting her to make a run for it and fully intending to let her. “He had every right!” Anger shivered through his voice as well. “I had promised him I would do anything and he took advantage mercilessly.” He lifted his wand and used the tip to push a tear soaked hair lock from her face. He didn’t trust himself to touch her, though the pads of his fingers were tingling with the temptation to do just that.

Her reaction was instantaneous, despite the strangeness of the gesture. Her pupils widened and the rosiness in her cheeks blossomed into a blush that could almost be adorable. His conscience warned him that he should not take advantage, that she was so young and that this was so wrong. That he should request an annulment that very day and let her find a future with an unbroken man her own age. That inner voice sounded too much like Dumbledore which pushed him to do the opposite simply out of spite.

He had lied, spied and put himself in danger. He had spent long, tortuous years protecting Lily’s son with his life. He had laid down his life for her memory and the cause. He had done everything Dumbledore had asked him, up to and including murder. Why shouldn’t he have something nice for once in his life? Why shouldn’t he enjoy a slice of pleasure instead of the usual pain, anguish, fear and guilt? He had grown up in this house, deprived, scorned and under his father’s blows. As a student at Hogwarts he had had nothing but humiliation, more scorn and terror. He had lost his only friend. He had lost his innocence and the few dreams he had ever dared entertain. He had lost his parents, such as they were. Then Lily had died and guilt and desperation had joined his existence followed by the nightmare of protecting her child and that of another war. The tortures at Voldemort’s hand. Killing. The abject loneliness after Dumbledore was gone. Only that Dumbledore had never been his friend. He had been his handler, his master, just like the Dark Lord. Being denied the oblivion of death. The empty restlessness of peace, the bad dreams and the intermittent pain from Nagini’s bite.

He lowered his wand and sank his free hand into her curls. She gasped and he lowered his mouth to hers, crushing her lips in a bruising kiss. He had given everything up to safeguard Potter and play his thankless role in the war. What little he had left Hogwarts had swallowed. He hadn’t touched a woman since before Lily’s death. And Hermione was lovely and didn’t find him physically repulsive. Didn’t he deserve to feel something good, something other than horror, pain and weariness? He had paid his dues. Surely he had earned some kind of reward, something other than that cold piece of metal that was the Merlin Award. Why did it matter that he didn’t feel the way she was beginning to? Hermione was a beautiful young woman falling for him. He wouldn’t be a Slytherin if he didn’t take advantage.

She tasted sweet, like ripe cherries, with a hint of his own, flavourless, overly chemical toothpaste. He pinned her to the door frame with his body. She was warm and soft, all gentle curves, and smelled of clean linen with the faintest touch of freesia. She had to have purchased some kind of a body wash during her earlier shopping spree because he certainly didn’t own anything carrying such a scent. It spurned him on, his blood starting to heat. He was a potioneer, he found scents stimulating. So he took and took and plundered, as he kissed her, and she responded timidly at first then with more aplomb. Only when breathing became an absolute necessity did he break apart from her, biting her lower lip in warning as he did.

Her flush had turned scarlet, her parted lips reddened from their kiss. Her wand had disappeared from sight, one of her arms having worked its way around his neck, while her other one was clenched in the material of his shirt over his biceps. She was clinging to him, breathing hard. He could get a read on her reaction beyond what visual cues offered him. He could perform superficial Legilimency wandlessly and voicelessly but he didn’t dare after the tumble her mind had just taken.

Her hand drifted from his upper arm to his face to cup his jaw a little uncertainly. Her lips curved into a small smile, her eyes sparkling. Her thumb pushed up a strand of his hair. She didn’t seem at all bothered by touching the greasy lock. How long had it been since somebody had touched him without the intention to cause him harm? It was the second time Hermione was doing it. It rattled him more than her actually responding to his greedy kiss. It made what he was contemplating seem all the more depraved.

Hermione was nothing like those low-ranking supporters of the Dark Lord he had taken to bed before in a blood-spattered haze of the senses. There had been no feelings and illusions involved back then. Besides, he had been drunk half of the time because sober it would have been harder to bear the disgust at himself and at the depravity he was willing to sink to. He had always known all too well why those women had slept with. Because they were hoping he would help them advance in the ranks and all the more pleasant looking and behaving Death Eaters had already turned them down. And yet he was letting Hermione touch him. All the previous, dark thoughts he had entertained regarding her only made him feel that much dirtier.

He wrenched himself free of her. “There is a box of potions in the lower drawer of the sideboard in my… your room. Drink half of vial of the clear lime green one,” he said in a steady voice, the need to instruct providing him with something he could use to centre himself. “It will take away your head-ache. I shall be there momentarily.”

She drew her lower lip into her mouth to bite on it, her gaze lowering, even as her blush deepened. She was flustered, that much was obvious. Perhaps it would spell the dawn of sanity for her.

“I’ll be upstairs then,” she said after an awkward pause.

He was careful not to make eye contact as he rushed towards the bathroom in a huff.

# # #

As she clambered up the stairs, Hermione became aware of two pressing sensations: her head was indeed splitting and her knees were weak. That kiss had flung her completely off-balance, making her forget everything. She had never been kissed like that but then she had never been kissed by a man before, only by boys. No, she decided, it was him, all him. He kissed with the same dark intensity he employed with everything else, demanding, like he expected nothing short of everything. Brutal too. She knew that was in him too. He might have turned his back on Voldemort and the Death Eaters but he was still dark wizard. Whatever had made him prone to immerse himself in the Dark Arts had been present in the way he had kissed her too. It should have frightened her but instead it had exhilarated her, her blood singing with it.

She wasn’t used to thinking of herself as someone attracted to darkness and raw power. It wasn’t how she had been raised by her proper, intellectual parents. It wasn’t what was expected of a Gryffindor. It wasn’t how a member of the Golden Trio, a hero of the cause of Light was supposed to feel. But there was something in her, something she had never dared explore before, that called to the darkness in him. She knew it was there, despite the years she had spent denying its existence, shimmering deep beneath the surface. It was what had driven her to keep Rita Skeeter captive in a jar or to scar Marietta Edgecombe’s face permanently. Everything she had been taught told her that impulse was wrong, that she should never explore it, that she should forever negate it. Yet it was there. She knew it was. It had latched onto something in Severus. And his hard, vicious kiss that had had nothing romantic in it had given it further life.

She found the box of potions where had told her, placed between clean towels and folded grey nightshirts. It was small and square, made of cheap, raw wood, the interior padded with black cotton. It was filled with various vials. She recognized the potion for Dreamless Sleep, Calming Draught, Sleeping Draught, burn-healing paste and wound-cleaning potion among them. The collection had a profound sobering effect on her. She discovered the potion he had indicated but failed to place it, its pungent smell foreign. She drank half of it and her head-ached vanished in matter of seconds. She corked back the phial and replaced it in the box.

She got off the floor and went to the bag she had packed back at her flat when she had gone to talk to the Minister. She transfigured a long-sleeved T-shirt into a dress, a little bit disappointed when the best her imagination conjured was a pale blue casual one that stopped just above her knees. Her mind was whirling as she changed. Severus’ recollection of Dumbledore’s death haunted her. She had avoided thinking of the Dumbledore Snape’s memories had revealed, eager to hold onto her pristine childhood imagine. That was crumbling now. How could Dumbledore have asked _that_ of Severus for any reason?

The anger at Dumbledore mixed with the fury at herself. She had been unfair to him too. At first, she had been offended by the accusations he had made regarding the bond. Now she knew better: of course, he was paranoid. She had been at war for over year and as a result, slept poorly, had nightmares and night terrors when she did, was jumpy during the day and occasionally thought she could still hear Bellatrix laughing. Meanwhile he had been at war for longer than she had been alive. Besides, she had gotten to fight openly, next to friends and people she could trust. He had had to hide his true allegiances, undulating between both sides, mistrusted and hated by all of them. It had to have taken an immense toll on him.

So she had removed her end of their connection, as much as she hadn’t wanted to. But she had been willing to show him she wasn’t using him, that she was genuine, even if it cost her pride. That meant next to nothing compared to the vast gulf of suffering she had briefly perceived in him. She had expected his ire and disdain upon finding out the truth. She had expected to be thrown out. She had expected to have to sign annulment papers by the end of the week. What she had not expected was to be kissed.

She winced as she struggled with her brush, fighting to tame her hair. Why had he kissed her? Could it be possible that he fancied her too? She paused before his vanity mirror, her brush stuck in a particularly tangled knot in her hair and turned slowly to stare at the bed she had made first thing in the morning. She settled the brush down with an uncertain hand. Foolish girl indeed, she thought bitterly. He was a man and he wanted what all men wanted. Was she even ready for that? She frowned at herself in the mirror. What had she expected? Flowers and chocolates. From Severus Snape? Had she truly thought a former Death Eater and dark wizard had sent her to his bedroom in order to chat, hold hands and maybe snog some more? She was a long way from Hogwarts and her teenage romances.

Abandoning any further attempts to untangle her hair, she set to braid it the way it was. She could say no, of course, that was not the issue. The issues was: did she want to?

# # #

Severus scrubbed himself clean, rubbing at his skin angrily, before washing off the suds into the tepid water in his tub. He even went as far as to wash his hair. There was no way he was going after Hermione sweaty and smelling of potion fumes after an entire night spent in the lab. Then again he wasn’t going at all, was he? What difference could a bath make? Surely his hair was less greasy but bathwater couldn’t shrink his nose or cleanse his scars or arrange his features into something less sharp or more harmonious. Or give him muscle definition. He was still skinny. He had always been skinny, all hard, protruding bones and sallow skin that would soon begin to sag now that middle age was beckoning. He wasn’t really considering going to bed with a twenty year old, was he? Then again what Slytherin staring forty in the face would turn down the opportunity?

Anger threatened to reassert itself. Why did Hermione always have to leap head-first in danger? At school he had always put the blame on Potter and Weasley, since she was clearly the more level-headed of the famed Trio. Either his impression had been wrong or those two had had more of a bad influence on her than he could have imagined.

Wasn’t it enough that the war had put her through? Didn’t she bear enough scars already? Did she have to go to the bedroom of a monster voluntarily? Kingsley knew he was dangerous. Every sane wizard and witch alive knew he was dangerous. Instead of the wariness he elicited in anyone with self-preservation instincts, Hermione had laid before him a welcoming mat to her mind and now seemed to be ready to surrender her body as well. Wasn’t she even a little aware of what he could do her? Of what it was like to have a dark wizard rooting around in your head. The likes of the Malfoys tread carefully around him. What was Hermione thinking?

He got out of the tub and dried himself with a quick spell. His fingers grabbed the cool edge of the sink as he looked up in the narrow, unclean mirror. Even washed, his hair was hanging in limp, dark strands around his face. His nose was as large as ever. His skin possessed the same unappealing pallor of always. His crooked teeth would never be fully white. Growing up, the opportunities to brush his teeth had been as rare as those to bathe and then once he had become a potioneer, they had yellowed further with his tasting of potions and ingredients.

He cleaned his teeth vigorously then took a few holy basil leaves mixed in with cloves from a small porcelain box he kept in the cabinet. He padded to the cabinet under the stairs with only a towel wrapped around his middle. He put on new underwear out of the package and fresh clothes—black trousers and a white shirt. He was a Slytherin. If a beautiful, twenty-years old young woman was reckless enough to allow him such an opening, why should he deny himself? She didn’t find him off-putting. The flashes he had caught in her mind were proof enough. It had been so long since he had allowed himself to be selfish. Longer still since he had allowed himself an indulgence of any kind. He had never hoped for such a chance, especially not from someone like Hermione. So why not profit?

Though he knew it might superfluous, he still put on his dress coat, doing up each and every button with meticulous moves. Once he was done, he felt more like himself. More in control. He climbed up the stairs with a firm step. Hermione was by the window looking at the dreary view outside his window. She had put on a dress, as if she needed to seduce him. The words to apologise for his inappropriate behaviour earlier were on the tip of his tongue but they never made it past his lips. Just once in how many years he wanted something for himself. Everyone had indulged since he had turned on Voldemort, in vengeance, in petty pleasures, in the simple joy of life going on. Both the Dark Lord’s followers and his enemies. Everyone but him. He had been trapped in a place he held nothing but resentment for, destined to be alone and loathed for the crime of attempting to save the woman he loved. For the crime of promising Dumbledore anything if he helped him do it.

He strode towards Hermione purposefully and grasped her right upper arm. His eyebrow went up quizzically when she looked up at him. He half hoped she would do and say what he was too selfish, too much of a Slytherin and too broken to do and say, but when she didn’t, he bent over her to kiss her again, this time a little more gently than before. He might allow himself an unwarranted indulgence but that didn’t mean he had to be complete monster about it.

# # #

Severus got up and righted his clothes with hands that were far steadier than he felt. His blood was cold, horror slicing through him. What had he done? Hadn’t he already learned his lesson the hard way the last time he had wanted something for himself, no matter how small? He was leery to turn to face Hermione, though he knew he had to. He understood now why Hermione had issued that ill-conceived invitation to her bed in order to prove to him that she wasn’t cheating. She had been telling the truth. She had never carried on any affair. She couldn’t have. He had been her first.

He turned to her slowly. She lay on her side, in his miserable, rusty iron-framed bed, his washed-up blue blanket pulled to her neck. Her braid had come apart and most of her curls were spread on his pillow, golden brown against the rumpled white of the case. He reached and stroked her cheek, intent on offering what little, however inept, comfort he could give. There was no undoing what he had done. He felt in the way his magic whorled and surged. It was part of the reason why wizards and witches had always married young and would probably continue to do so in the future. There was power in shedding virgin blood. Long before wand magic, virgin sacrifices had not been uncommon in the darker corners of the Wizardkind.

“Are you in pain?” he asked with as much kindness as he could summon, fearing the answer. He couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t told him. He would have stopped. He was not that much of a monster. Not enough of a wretch not to realise that she deserved better than to lose her virginity in this shabby, polluted place, victim of the selfish desires of a man like him.

She shook her head at his question, the brave little Gryffindor even attempting a half smile. “No, I’m only a little sore.” She grasped at the sleeve of his shirt and since a few of the upper buttons were undone, it slipped enough to expose a scarred shoulder. “Could you stay and hold me… please?”

Wordlessly he gathered her in his arms, letting her burrow her face into his shirt above his stammering heart. Regret and guilt mixed like ashes in his mouth. He squeezed her to him and kissed the top of her head, one of his hands awkwardly patting at her hair. He half expected her to cry but she didn’t. She smelled of freesia and of him and it was sickening. He hadn’t even been as gentle as he could have, too driven by his baser, darker impulses. He closed his eyes but had to open them immediately against the onslaught of images his memory conjured. Her small yet sharp cry still reverberated in his ears. It was then that he had known that he had done but by then it had been too late.

Her arms wound around him, cradling his torso with the tenderness he had denied her when taking away her innocence. Her palms pressed on his back over his shirt and the touch burnt him like a brand.

TBC


	19. The Harsh Light of Day

Hermione buried her face in the starched cotton of his shirt, breathing in the scent of clean male musk, eager to hide from the world and the whirl of questions swirling in her head. He was holding her, clutching her a little too tightly to his body but she was reluctant to draw his attention to it, lest he released her completely. One of his hands was in her hair, his fingers trading through her curls idly, while his face was pressed against the top of her head. She could feel the heat of his breath on her scalp. It was intimate, safe and comforting in way sex hadn’t been. It also felt a little desperate, as if they were clinging to each other for dear life.

She hadn’t indulged into fantasies about how her first time would be too often but that didn’t mean she had been exempt from them altogether. It was just that normally she had been busy with other things, the war against the most dangerous dark wizard in history chief among them. Reality had been quick to poor ice water on her meagre flights of fancy. There had been no candles, no diffuse lighting, no flowers and no soft music playing, not even a comfortable bed. Instead it had happened under a cold stab of early morning light, in silence and with a total economy of tender gestures. Mostly it had been painful and a bit impersonal, as Severus had taken what he wanted from her.

She shuddered, pushing against old insecurities threatening to rear their ugly head, and fisted her hands in his shirt at his lower back. Maybe Severus didn’t have any feelings for her but if he did want her physically, that was still something. Better than nothing, at least. It was an adult thing that left little room for a young woman’s romantic fantasies. But then had she truly expected Severus Snape to fulfil any of those? He wanted to sleep with her. That was it and she either bolted now or learnt to make her peace with it. Also he was willing to cuddle her when she asked, despite the fact that she was certain this didn’t rank high on the list of things he normally did. That was something too.

There was no point in wondering what it all meant beyond that because the answer was nothing, and she didn’t think she could bear to hear it from his lips, not with her heart gravitating towards him as it did. She didn’t imagine she could take the disdain that would drip from his words if she pushed him in that direction. She had lost virginity to Severus Snape, as improbable as that would have sounded two years before, and she didn’t regret it. In fact, what had just happened between them was perfectly true to character for him. The moment mattered little. If he was to be her first, it could have only occurred the same way it just had. It had been harsh and prickly and oddly distant and defying any cliches about making special. In other words, it was _him_. Her chest warmed at the thought, the frayed nerves of the aftermath settling some more.

She just wished she was less shaken but that could hardly be helped. Her heart was racing. It had been working itself towards paroxysm since he had pushed her dress off her. Her usually restless mind was busy working itself into a tizzy while her nervous system felt as if it had just been put through a blender. She figured some of it was natural, given the momentous landmark she had just passed. She wanted more and she was excited that it had happened with him, her complicated first adult crush… her _husband_. They had consummated their marriage, she realised, her emotions becoming even more of a jumbled mess she had no hope of being able to parcel out soon.

He shifted, laying her back on the bed, on her side. He went with her, still holding her, her face still plastered to his chest, and flung a clothed leg over her nude ones underneath his scratchy blanket. She could hear him breathe steadily above her. Neither broke the increasingly fraught silence between them and Hermione was in no rush to be the first to speak, for the first time in as long as she could recall finding herself at a loss for words. His fingers slipped lower and he brushed the hair off her naked shoulder. A sharp intake of breath shuddered out of his lungs with so much force she could feel it against her cheek. She craned her head to get a look when he pressed at a point on her skin that ached. She saw a swollen imprint of crooked teeth marking her. She blushed remembering the exact moment he had bitten her.

His black wand slashed through the air.

“No,” she said quickly. “Leave it. It’s not in a visible spot and I don’t mind.”

His brows furrowed, a deep crease appearing between them. “It will bruise,” he said quietly in that familiar dull draw of his.

She was a little disappointed to hear him as he always sounded while her world felt knocked off its orbit. _Don’t be stupid_ , she chided herself internally. _It’s not like it’s all that significant too him. It wasn’t his first time!_

She lifted her torso a little to meet his eyes, trying to appear as nonchalant as she could. His grip on her loosened. “You didn’t break the skin,” she said and was pleased to hear her voice sound almost casual. She didn’t want to give him the impression she was in need of babying. She knew all too well how much he resented annoyances and impositions. “It’s not a big deal.” She needed to get a grip. She flashed back to Harry complaining about his Occlumency lessons with Snape. Severus valued control of one’s emotions and mental discipline. He wasn’t inclined to react well to needy clinging and unrealistic expectations of romance.

The cool tip of his wand traced the contour of her cheek. It was the second time he was touching her with his wand. It was strangely enthralling. It added to the slight rush she could feel emanating from her magic core. Something had changed about it but she couldn’t tell what it was exactly. His wand moved up towards her ear, pushing a few stray locks behind it.

“It’d be a bit superflous to put a spell on me now,” she said teasingly and surged upwards towards to place a light kiss on his lips. She could do that now that they were sleeping together, she realised, and felt elated by the discovery. She kissed him with more of an intent, enjoying the sensation of his soft lips beneath hers. They were fuller than they looked and if she looked up close, she noticed he had a bit of a Cupid bow, too.

He was the one who broke the kiss and Hermione let her lips skim to his cheek, trailing across his pale skin, curious and eager to explore. One of her hands moved up to comb through his hair. She had noticed that he had washed it before coming upstairs. Her fingers slid easily through the rather limp strands that were silky soft.

“You should take a potion for the pain,” he opined quietly, his word enunciated rarely and carefully.

Hermione made a noise low in her throat, not really paying him any heed, as her lips ghosted along his jawline. The dull throb she felt could hardly be categorized as pain. “I had worse during flying lessons,” she muttered. She felt the muscles of his face move, as he undoubtedly smiled at that. “It’s not nice to smirk at the flying impaired,” she added and kissed the tip of his famously large nose. She drew upwards to climb over him more fully. His body was all hard, solid bone beneath her. He really needed to take better care of himself. She kissed him a few more times on the skin of his neck, the arm around her waist tightening its hold as she did, before she rested her head back on his chest, above his steadily beating heart.

This was nice, peaceful even. Even the light spilling from the window seemed less harsh, though it lit up the damaged wallpaper, the mould-eaten walls and thick layer of dust that seemed to coat everything in this house. It didn’t bother Hermione. This house was part of his history. It had shaped him just as losing Lily and the vicious bullying at the hands of the Marauders had. As with everything else, she was only sad about what he had had to endure. It made sense, though, for their first time to be here.

“I am sorry,” he said so quietly she had barely hear him.

The peace was shattered in an instant. Her head snapped up, her eyes searching his face. His expression, to the extent that it was readable, was grim.

She blinked rapidly, as insecurities, old and new, barraged at her. “What? Why?” Had he disappointed him? Would he have preferred someone more mature and sophisticated instead of being stuck with an inexperienced girl who didn’t know how to please him?

He looked away from her, his eyes hooded. “You did not deserve your first time to be here, in this cursed house, with me. Nobody deserved that much.”

Hermione was taken aback. She was used to her own insecurities growing up with an out-of-control mop of hair and teeth problems but it had never occurred to her that this mysterious dark wizard she found entirely fascinating was thus afflicted. She knew he was not considered conventionally attractive, his many unflattering nicknames back at Hogwarts were proof of that, but with a mind and a power like his, who cared about conventions?

“I’m not sorry,” she countered and grasped at his chin, trying to turn his face towards hers but he was stiff and unyielding, though his arms had slackened around her. “From what I’ve read, it’s supposed to hurt the first time. I am sure next time will be better.”

His head lolled back towards her. His ebony eyes were blazing, wild fire burning in those unfathomable depths. “Next time? Are you quite mad? Run, you silly girl, run like you have never known to run from troubles all those years at Hogwarts.”

“I’m not a girl any more,” she sputtered indignantly.

“No,” he replied darkly. “I took that from you.”

That hadn’t been quite what she had meant but still she latched onto it. “You didn’t take anything I didn’t freely give,” she stressed.

He sat up abruptly, his jerky movement nearly causing her to topple to the floor. He held her fast, though, his fingers digging into the flesh of her upper arms. “Look at me,” he commanded, his voice harsh and unforgiving, though it had not raised at all. That soft, steady baritone was more dangerous than any shout, she knew that well. “This is not a fairy tale,” he continued. “I shall not turn into a handsome young prince as you kiss me, regardless of any name I might have inherited. You will not save me or change me or better me. I am a dark wizard twice your age everyone with a lick of sense rightfully despises. I shall not hold your hand. I shall not go on moonlit strolls with you or gift you with flowers or any such frivolous nonsense you have read about in those insipid novels and magazines I have had the misfortune of confiscating while teaching at Hogwarts. The man you think you fancy does not exist. You are not the ingénue in a Gothic tale and you will not melt my icy heart. We shall not live happily ever after. This was an unpardonable mistake on my part and it shall not be repeated!”

Tears trembled in Hermione’s eyes and she could not hold them back no matter how she tried. “Don’t you think that I know that? I know there is no romantic fantasy to be had with you but I also know that you are indeed the man I believe you to be. You are the most brilliant man I know and you are the selfless hero who saved us all.” She grasped at her blanket holding it protectively around her. “I wanted this to happen. I would have stopped you if I didn’t. I’m not sorry that it did. If you can’t take me at my word, all you have to do is peek inside my head and see the truth for yourself.”

He lifted his hands from her and held them in front of her face. They were as beautiful as she remembered, despite the few yellowed stains on his fingers. She now knew that they were slightly calloused too from his work with potions. She shivered at the notion.

“These are the hands of a murderer, Hermione. Do you truly want them on you again?”

She paused, calculating quickly. Whose issues were they discussing here? Hers or his? Coming to a swift decision that she hoped was the correct one, she met his gaze without flinching. “Do you?”

“Doesn’t it occur to the brightest witch of her age that I am trying to do the right thing?”

“When did you stop doing the right thing?” she quipped and continued hastily as he opened his mouth evidently to protest. “This is simple, Severus! I don’t want to change or otherwise improve you. I don’t want you to be anyone other than who you are. Do you want it to be a next time… and all the times after that?”

He studied her face with that dark, snide gaze of his then suddenly his eyes locked with hers. She felt the light probe sweep over the surface of her mind and she opened up, anxious for him to see that she was sincere.

_The Beast dies in the older versions of the French tale,_ she whispered to him in her mind. _Heathcliff_ _was met with_ _an unhappy ending. As w_ _as_ _the Phantom of the Opera. What romantic Gothic fantasies would I have concocted about you?_

Amusement flitted over from him and then his incursion in her head came to an end. He regarded her with an impassive sneer. “You are sliding down a path you fail to comprehend entirely. Dark wizards that come from Slytherin House and used to be Death Eaters tend to wish for depraved things from their witches.”

“Is this how you are trying to frighten me away? With the promise of learning new and forbidden things? Have you met me before?”

His hand shot out lighting fast. He had the most impressive reflexes. His fingers fisted in the hair at her nape and he pulled her closer for a quick, hard kiss that almost reached the edge of brutality. Her lips tingled as they parted. There was something intoxicating about him like this, the dark shadows in his eyes, that baleful expression of his, the way he kissed as if he was fighting, with all the precision and hidden violence of a knife flying towards its target.

“Careful little Gryffindor,” he warned.

She grabbed at the material of his shirt over his shoulders and kissed him too, biting lightly on his lower lip before their mouths parted. “Is that a promise?”

“Yes, for later.”

His grip turned possessive again and thus reassured, she rested her head on his shoulder. He held her for a while in silence.

# # #

Hermione was puttering about his kitchen making breakfast, while he put on for coffee, deliberately keeping his back to her. The near domesticity of it chafed at him, the wrongness of what was happening almost overwhelming. He belonged in a place like, as much as he had tried to escape it in the past. Even now that he had where else to go, he realised all the more that the son of Tobias Snape and the ghost that had once been Eileen Prince was meant to live in this dusty ruin of a home. He could have never brought Lily here. He had seen her home and her parents and Petunia’s disdainful gaze as she had spotted his patched and mismatched clothes. Beautiful, delicate middle-class girls like Lily didn’t come to live at Spinner’s End. In all honesty, that was when the idea of becoming a Death Eater had truly begun to appeal to him, with the promises of power and riches. He had paid lip service to an ideology he had never truly believed in so he could fit in with his Slytherin classmates but if being a Death Eater meant money, then his naive and young self had believed that this way he would have something to offer to Lily much like James Potter and others like him had. Of course, back then he had been too foolish to realise a fortune and a beautiful house was not everything James Potter had to offer Lily.

Hermione was one of the those middle-class girl from a good, stable family, much like Lily had been. He had known it even at Hogwarts. It hadn’t meant anything back then. She had been hardly the only one of the kind. It was significant now, however. Why wasn’t she running screaming from this house? Why had she allowed the greasy bat of the Hogwarts dungeons to take her virginity in his pitiful childhood bed? How could she have looked at his face and still kissed him in the aftermath? He knew she fancied him or at least, the somewhat romanticized version of him she had constructed in her mind, but that was hardly enough. Life was made of concrete things, things like manky old furniture and mould eating through walls and foul smelling streets. All these things mattered because in reality love did not conquer all. All these things should have shattered any childish romantic designs Hermione had on him and yet not even his warnings had frightened her away. Here she was making him breakfast and chatting about how his coffee should be classified as liquid coronary.

“I add a potion that potentiates the effects of the caffeine,” he explained in a bored voice, forgoing the potion this time.

Did this foolish young Gryffindor have that much hope for her ability to change and save him, despite all her assurances to the contrary? Had the victory against the Dark Lord made her cocky? True, said victory hadn’t cost her his soul as it had done with him so she had gotten to hold onto some left-over naive ideals.

She finished warming up the sandwiches she had made in a pan and piled them up on two plates next to generous helpings of scrambled eggs with cheese. He noted that she put a lot more food on the plate she pushed towards him than on her own. Carefully he caught her eye. She smiled at him, looking surprised. He slipped into her mind quickly, attentive so that she couldn’t sense him. She was worried he was too thin and failing to take good enough care of himself. She was definitely hoping to be his saving grace, though she wasn’t ready to admit to it even to herself. The lioness wanted to save the world, himself included. His guilt over taking her virginity out of a selfish impulse started to ebb. He didn’t want to be on anyone’s _to be saved_ list, least of all on that of a member of the Golden Trio that had been the bane of his already painful final years at Hogwarts.

“How did you discover where Umbra would be during the Hunter’s Moon?” she asked all of the sudden as they sat down to eat.

“I didn’t. It is possible, however, to approximate the optimal time and place for the reanimation of Inferi from the bodies of those one has not previously killed.”

She frowned, pausing with her fork half-way to her mouth. “You didn’t teach us this in DADA class.”

“The Ministry frowns upon imparting information to students from illegal dark magic books,” he drawled, making sure to let the contempt for the restriction permeate his voice.

“And you have that book.”

“No,” he said simply. “There is but one copy in all of England and it has been in the possession of the Malfoy family for the past three hundred years.”

“The Aurors ransacked Malfoy Manor after the war. They found nothing illegal there.”

He wondered if she was aware that her voice caught when she had referred to Lucius and Narcissa’s house but he didn’t say anything out loud, opting to take a bite of his food instead. Finally, seeing she would get no reply from him, she stirred some sugar and an abundance of cream into her coffee before taking a cautious sip.

“Lucius borrowed you the book,” she tried again.

“He couldn’t have even if he wanted. It is blood bound to his line but I trust Draco’s calculations to be correct.” _If he values his physical integrity_ , he added in his head, fully aware that Draco did, in fact, value his physical integrity.

She frowned, seeming to work something out in her mind. “Astoria passed you the results while my back was turned, didn’t she?” she asked, her voice sharper than usual.

He didn’t reply this time, either.

“I wouldn’t have told anyone.” Her tone was insistent to the point of pleading.

“If you had been the spat upon daughter of two Death Eaters, would you have passed illegally obtained information in front of a Ministry official?” he asked reasonably.

Hermione lowered her gaze, colour blooming high on her cheeks. “Nevertheless her and the Malfoys’ secret is safe with me.”

“Your courtesy towards Death Eaters is touching,” he commented nastily.

“The war is over,” she pointed out without much inflection in her voice.

“So you keep reminding me.” He vanished the last of his food, which was about half, and took a large gulp of his coffee, polishing it off. He cleaned his plate and mug with a spell instead of the Muggle way into which he sometimes slipped without really meaning to while at Spinner’s End.

He was just about to go out of the kitchen when she called after him.

“Could you please show me Draco’s calculations? I’m curious how you determine the best time and place to raise Inferi.”

“There are on my desk,” he answered coolly.

Severus climbed up the stairs at a fast pace. He needed air and solitude. He had been spending more alone time with Hermione of late than he had with anyone in his adult life and it was already beginning to grate.

The bed in his old bedroom was still unmade. He froze at the sight of blood on the white sheet, evidence of one more innocence he had ruined. Fresh guilt and shame rose like bile in his throat. Any other considerations about Hermione fell to the side. He was reminded yet again just how young she was, how pure… less pure now, he amended in his head. Her assurances that she had no regrets felt hollow. He was the one who should have known better, who should do better by her. He raised his wand but he couldn’t find it in himself to remove the incriminating evidence. He whirled around and knelt to dig in the back of his cupboard. He found it where he used to hide it as a teenager too: a half fallen apart shoe box.

He had started smoking at fifteen when he had figured out how much it enraged his father. He had been caught often and beaten savagely each time but the genuine irritation it had elicited in his father had been worth it. By that age pain meant little to him, the blows nothing new and the humiliation of it a far cry from what the Marauders put him through on a nearly daily basis at Hogwarts in the full view of witches and wizards of tomorrow. His father had had little left of his previous power to hurt him by then and the more he beat him, the more detailed Severus’ plan to kill him after graduation became.

The old, cheap cigarettes fell apart at his touch but he found a few usable sheets of rolling paper and a bit of shag. He rolled two cigarettes, adding crushed anise stars to the tobacco, and used a spell of his own device to remove the more harmful effects of his now long-abandoned habit then, grabbed the dried-out box of matches. As his study of Potions had progressed, he had no longer afforded the impact of tobacco on his sense of smell and taste buds and seeing no point in persisting after his father was gone, he had weaned himself off smoking.

He grabbed a cloak on his way out then ducked by the coal shed turned potions lab behind the house. He lit a cigarette and drew the smoke into his lungs with gusto, letting the long forgotten sensation wash over him. A thin, cold rain was drizzling from the ashen skies above, wetting his hair, but he ignored it. There was another problem with Hermione: she was getting under his skin. His usually neatly ordered and perfectly controlled mind felt jumbled, jarred. He watched the round waves of vapour dissipate in the air before him, letting himself slip deep into his head, the rote familiarity of smoking and mind magic aiding his concentration as he sought to reorder his thoughts and emotions.

By the time he crushed his second cigarette under his boot, his hair and cloak were thoroughly soaked. He turned towards the house and caught sight of his bedroom window. Hermione was there, holding a piece of parchment in her hand, watching him. Their eyes met causing his palms to itch. A slew of carnal images assaulted his senses and tore through his vaunted self-control. He had opened Pandora’s box that morning, he realised. After Lily’s death, he had placed any and all private needs in a locked corner of his mind and hadn’t touched upon them since. Now that he had crossed that line, he had broken that tried-and-true lock. He still felt guilty about what had happened but was it enough keep him from indulging again?

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shag is loose tobacco used to make self-made cigarettes. Yes, really. :)


	20. Two Women

The day passed uneventfully enough. Hermione fussed over him when he came back in wet as a soaked cat, which was suitably annoying. He evaded her grasp with a sneer. In between continuing to try and ply him with food, as if he had been incapable of feeding himself for the past nearly forty years, she asked a few pertinent and clearly well thought-out questions about Draco’s calculations and mixing Arithmancy with Dark Magic. As he answered, reluctantly at first, he studied her face. Hatred of the Dark Arts was Hogwarts dogma and so far, she had seemed thoroughly indoctrinated, if he disregarded that fact that she had attempted to maintain a mental bond created through a decidedly not light-filled way. When she caught him looking, she cast him a small smile which he chose to ignore.

As he spoke, however, he found himself launched in a lengthy explanation of the details she had requested. A pang sliced through him. He hadn’t taught since Dumbledore’s death. Though teaching would have never been his normal choice in a career and he still found himself at a loss as how to deal with children or anyone else, for that matter, it didn’t change the fact that he had been a professor virtually his entire adult life. He loathed Hogwarts as much as he loathed his house at Spinner’s End. He had been tormented, hurt, ignored and humiliated in equal measure in both places. However, both Hogwarts and Spinner’s End were the only homes he had ever known. A year spent drifting aimlessly through the decaying luxury of the Prince Manor and the occasional visits to the antiquated elegance of the family castle in Florence had only served to emphasize that point. Without teaching, with the war over along with his role as a spy, away from Hogwarts and Cokeworth, he had felt nothing but mounting restlessness and isolation as he had sunk into the history of a family that had never been his, alone with the many ghosts of his own past.

He had systematized his corrections of that woefully inadequate  _Advanced Potion Making_ textbook  he was certain Hogwarts students still had to suffer through, now that he was no longer teaching, though he was well aware they would prefer an inferior instruction to having him as their professor.  He also had two treatises on his experiments with potions he had written during his summer holidays back when he had been a member of the Hogwarts staff.  He had  completed his extensive compendium on the Dark Arts that included his own spells and hexes, not he would ever be allowed to print it. Still he could publish the first three, now that he was no longer busy s pying , but it had all seemed so senseless this past nearly two years, as if  his skills had outlived their use and now he knew not what to do with them and with himself. 

He fell silent, staring into the flames burning in the grate, toying with stem of the glass of wine Hermione had wanted after dinner. The day had slipped by faster  and far less awkwardly than he could have p ictured . He felt the pressure of the sleepless night but it was nothing he wasn’t i nured to. 

“Severus,” she called from where she sat with her legs crossed under her on the touch. 

He took a swig of his barely touched wine and didn’t answer. There was  a familiar fretful itching simmering just beneath his skin. Inactivity didn’t suit him any more than the newness of this situation with his wife  did. 

“Draco estimated the best time for reanimating Inferi based on the position of the Harvest Moon within the chart he created,” Hermione began. “The Harvest Moon coincides with the autumnal equinox. When did you say the grave robberies started in England?”

“Eleven days after the March Equinox. When we were all too busy fighting the Dark Lord to pay any heed to a few minor incidents in the Muggle world.”

“Eleven is the number most used to calculate awakenings of any kind,” she said. 

“The Dark Lord opened the gateway on the Spring Equinox,” he realised.

“How is that significant?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper, sounding as if she were talking to herself.

“I am… uncertain. There are precise connection points between the wizarding and the Muggle world. Perhaps it is the same with other worlds and their alignment is cyclic. Perhaps the Dark Lord needed to be at a precise time and place for whatever spell or ritual he performed to take effect.”

“Isn’t there any way to find out what he did exactly? Maybe it can be reversed.”

“I strongly doubt it,” he replied. “True necromancy is impossible.”

“You don’t think…? Of course, he did. He was Voldemort, after all. He used a human sacrifice.”

“More than one, I would wager. It is no coincidence that whatever being he let through has a penchant for creating Inferi.”

They were interrupted by a hoarse scream of a curse word just outside following by a thump that sounded like a rock hitting a wall. It wasn’t the wall of his house, though. He grimaced. “As you can imagine, vagrancy is common in this area,” he drawled in his practised bored tone, sneaking a peek at her, almost daring her to be bothered by it. “Among other things,” he added pointedly.

“Have you had any problems?” she asked. She sounded worried.

He only shrugged. “This house has a sinister enough reputation to keep away even the most unsavoury of company.” He took a sip of his wine and glanced back at her. He suspected she believed him to be the cause of his house’s bad reputation. If that was true, he was in no rush to correct her. Or perhaps she knew what had happened with his parents, how the murder-suicide had rocked the peace of the sleepy, half abandoned town of Cokeworth. His irregular comings and goings and in a virtually deserted part of town had helped spread the rumour that the last house on Spinner’s End was haunted. He supposed that in a way it was, because what was he if not a ghost here? None of that, however, was common knowledge in the wizarding world but then she was Muggle-born and had a knack for research. Perhaps she had come across the articles in the old local papers.

H ermione said nothing to his remark, though. She just sat and gnawed on her lower lip,  her eyes soft to the infuriating point of compassion . The flames and the low lighting in the room cast a warm glow across her face surrounded by the frizzy halo of her hair. She was no longer wearing the dress from the morning, instead reverting to her more usual combination of jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt.  The memory of his parents turned the itchy feeling beneath his skin into a low-hum burn. He wanted to forget more than anything else. 

“I don’t suppose there is anything more we can do until we go and confront this creature face-to-face,” she went on, seemingly deciding to let his comment about the house slide, though the softness had not gone from her eyes. “Then we’ll see what it is for ourselves.”

“Obviously,” he replied in his best disinterested voice, spacing the syllables of the word carefully. 

“May I borrow some of your books to read?” she asked politely.

“I believe you already have.”

“No… not the Muggle ones, the books you have in here.” She gestured to the shelves carpeting the walls of the sitting room.

“I see no reason why not… and not for want of searching. Frankly, I am surprised you waited so long to make this request.”

She chuckled. “To be honest, I’ve first contemplated if I could sneak one or two away without you noticing.”

“In that case, I should warn you cannot take any book or potion brewing material past the wards around this house.”

“Dully noted,” she answered with a slight smile.

He finished his glass of wine all the way sensing her staring at him for a beat or two. Then she got up, the old springs in the couch protesting her move, and padded to the shelves covering the kitchen walls. The burning inside him turned into something vicious demanding to be sated. He was weary and he hated whirl within him that he failed to tame properly. He clenched a fist in his lap. With Dumbledore dead, he had nobody to tell him what to do any more and he hated the very idea that he might need the guidance. No, Dumbledore had used him mercilessly for the purposes of the war. No genuine voice of conscience trapped one into committing murder. He still felt the tear  into the very depth of his soul. Dumbledore had been wrong. The killing had tainted him. He still bore it. He surmised he always would. The desire to forget returned with renewed ferocity. He couldn’t very well slip into alcohol and depression with Hermione here but there was something else he could with her. 

Severus stood up slowly, fighting  his nobler instincts  that pressed him for an excuse to get her out of here and away from him. Her presence was a stifling imposition upon his usually solitary existence and he wanted to forget about that as well. Paradoxically enough, however, he didn’t want her to leave, either. At least, not tonight. He placed his empty wine glass on his mantel piece, wishing he had had more so that he might use inebriation as an excuse for his  shockingly lacking willpower. 

Hermione had pulled up a musty tome and was leafing with clear eagerness. He rested his fingertips on her hips, uncertain of his welcome after the morning’s fiasco. She shut the book and returned it to its place before turning to face him. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks bright red. 

“Severus,” she said gently. 

All thoughts of restraint fled as he lunged for her. The last coherent notion in his head, just before sanity abandoned him, was:  _don’t hurt her again._

# # #

Hermione was sprawled on a  magically extended version of the couch in  the sitting room,  struggling to catch her breath. Her heart threatened to leap out of her chest. After everything she had been through, she had never thought she could still be shocked to the core. After everything she had learnt of him since the end of the war, she had never expected to discover any more hidden depth t o Severus Snape.  Yet here she was, very much shocked after having found a wholly unexpected side of Severus. She had once wondered how it would feel to be the subject of the intense concentration he displayed when brewing and d oing magic . Now she knew. It had far surpassed anything she could have imagined  even  in her wildest fever dream. 

All the cold aloofness of the morning had vanished and Hermione had found herself flung in the eye of an unleashed hurricane that had dragged and dragged at her until her famed mind had gone entirely blank. Perhaps it was because she was so inexperienced but she couldn’t remember ever forgetting herself so completely in her  entire life. It had been almost disturbingly intense, almost to the point of despair. As if her husband had tried to find something he fervently needed in her, something to help him claw his way to light from the bottom of a particularly dark, bottomless pit.  She had responded with all the tenderness she could summon, drunk on the feeling of being needed. It was better than desire, better than any hope she could have mustered for the two of them, because his onyx black, haunted eyes had drunk her in as if she were the very air he required in order to continue drawing breath. 

# # #

Severus did the buttons of his shirt back up as quickly as he could. She had gotten four of them undone b efore he had remembered to side-track her from undressing him completely. Thankfully, the insufficient light had to have hidden the worst of the mangled mess left of his right knee,  not that he had cared at the time . It took him a moment to realise he could  have  opted for a spell to redo his buttons, which, in turn, only served to unsettle him further.  He never needed the reminder to use magic.

He stood on surprisingly shaky legs and went to collect his coat from where it lay discarded on the floor. He shook off the dust from it and used it to cover Hermione who was looking at him blearily, as if drugged.  With concern he noted scratches he had left on her pale rosy skin. There  were finger shaped bruises on her left thigh. What was with him? He had lost control worse than this morning. He had tried to make up for the horror of their first time— _her_ first time ever—while he took what he desperately needed from her. It was the least he could to soothe his conscience still berating him for taking advantage of a young woman’s ill-advised crush. Since Hermione had no room for comparison, his efforts had apparently been sufficient.

Her fingers curved into the sleeve of his shirt as she smiled up him, still very much out of it. “Severus… that was… you were….”

So that was what it took to silence Hermione Granger. Her fingers slid down the material of his shirt and grasped at his hand, her thumb stroking the seam of his palm. He froze. She was holding onto him with infinite delicacy, cradling his hand as if it were a baby bird. Before he even knew what he was doing, he lifted their linked hands to his lips and placed a kiss on the back of hers. She stretched like a cat under his coat and stifled a yawn.

“We should go to bed,” she said, her voice still a little raspy.

He shook his head to banish the memory of her hoarse screaming, though he knew it was already ingrained in his unfailing memory. His best intentions didn’t stand a chance now. She was far too good for his innate Slytherin ego. He already wished to provoke those sounds again.

She released his hand and got up only to don his coat, buttoning it up a little on her way. Then she lifted the collar to bury her nose in it. “Your coat smells like you,” she murmured dreamily. “Of rain and smoke and freshly chopped herbs.”

Apparently, he had managed to scramble out the poor girl’s brains.

# # #

Hermione was sleeping peacefully, wrapped around him like ivy, her head pillowed on his chest, her frightful hair tickling his chin. She was a warm, light burden he found that he didn’t mind at all. How long had it been since somebody had held him? Unbidden the memory of his mother squeezing him to her chest slipped into his consciousness  from a corner of his mind he generally avoided. He h ad been eight at the time. He still recalled her cool, thin fingered hand on his forehead, and the look in her eyes that for once had been something other than emptiness.  He had had measles and his mother had wrung her hands and muttered about how a simple potion could save him all day until her father had come home from work and beaten her into silence. When Tobias’ snores had travelled from beyond the wall  and  into S everus’ bedroom, his mother had whispered in his ear not to make a sound then  s he had slipped out. To this day he had no idea how she had managed to get the ingredients and brew but she had and likely saved his life that night.  After his fever had broken, however, the hollow expression had returned to her face and she had begun to act as if she kept forgetting he existed once more. 

H ermione’s distressed whimper snapped him back to the present. He clutched her tighter to him. She was so slight, so delicate against his tall, bony shape. She muttered something incoherent about death. He would need his wand and to say the spell out loud or at least, look into her eyes, for a proper Legilimency incursion but, if the dream was right at the forefront of her mind, then perhaps he could find  it by s imply extending his thoughts into hers. 

She wasn’t dreaming of Bellatrix and of being tortured but of  the half demolished Great Hall at Hogwarts filled with bodies. She stood among them, looking lost and just a little bit confused, as if dead were there, all around her, by some mistake. He couldn’t participate or wrench her from her dream, the contact too weak. She sank to her knees amid the rubble then slowly began to stretch on the ground as if she were a corpse, too. 

H e withdrew from her mind rather abruptly but failed to wake her. He grasped her shoulder firmly between his fingers and began to shake not without a measure of care. He didn’t want to spook her further.

“Hermione,” he called, keeping his voice and low and even. “You must wake up! Hermione….”

She shifted atop him and after a moment or two her head raised, her eyes trying to meet his in the grey darkness of the room. “What… what’s happened?”

“You were having a nightmare,” he explained and moved too, reversing their positions and pinning her to the bed beneath him. His lips skimmed along her jaw. “I can make you forget,” he promised. “Let me make you forget.” 

Her hands came to tangle in his hair. “Yes… make me forget.” 

# # #

Astoria Greengrass sat amid a cluster of Slytherins, taking notes listlessly, as Slughorn bumbled about from the front of the class as he cast warm smiles to everyone but those in his own House. Everyone at Hogwarts knew that Slytherin was damaged goods. Most of them had a relative, a friend, a mere acquaintance who had been on the wrong side during the war. What was left of the reputation of the House was gone. They were tolerated at school but nothing more. Astoria was twice damned because of her parents and because of the swirling rumours about her relationship with Draco Malfoy.

A small projectile of sorts flew from the Gryffindors sitting up front towards her head. She ducked and ignored it. Complaining to one of the teachers would only make everything worse. She had learned as much the hard way. She looked at Slughorn with a hatred he probably didn’t deserve. Slughorn was a good man but he was a slave to his weakness es, his club chief among them. Since the war Slug Club had become mostly off limits to those in the man’s own House. He clearly didn’t want to be tainted by association. Eager to recruit from the winning Gryffindors, who had more or less openly taken over the school,  he  was all too proud to boast that the Chosen One, his girlfriend, Ginny Weasley, and Hermione Granger had  used to be a part of his Slug Club. 

Slytherins often took N.E.W.T. course with  the H ead of their House as a courtesy but Astoria had never regretted her manners more than when she had opted for Potions. As with everything else, Slughorn wasn’t a bad teacher per se, he just followed the textbooks to the letter or let the students do so while he busied himself recruiting for his club.  She remembered from her early years at Hogwarts that Snape would write his own, often corrected recipes, on the blackboard and ground everyone until they gave their very best, Astoria included, though she possessed no special talent for Potions.  Yet nobody, least of all, a Slytherin dared to do anything but work slavishly in Potions, because Snape  left nobody behind. He would have never ignored almost a quarter of his seventh year N.E.W.T. class. 

P eople often thought Snape favoured Slytherin but what they tended to forget was that he actually lived with the m in the dungeons.  That was his domain over which he ruled with an iron fist. The least he could  do  was take points. In fact, most Slytherins would have preferred it if he did. But no, his punishments were infinitely more varied,  creative and insidious.  They could never get away with anything with him around. He appeared out of nowhere, moved  soundlessly and was impossible to lie to.  Astoria herself had confessed to her wrongdoings more than once, knowing it would be  so much w orse if he discovered  her himself.  But the point was that he was there, that he knew everything there was to know about them, whether they needed help or  if they had misbehaved. Slughorn lived in Hogsmeade. His office was on the sixth floor and he didn’t come to the Dungeons unless he absolutely had to, seeming ill at ease there, almost to the point of shame, and eager to leave as soon as possible. 

A storia would be leaving the school soon and she detested the thought of leaving her House without anyone to speak for them at Hogwarts. The children she hoped to have with Draco one day, would come here too, and would most likely be sorted into Slytherin. She wanted no child of hers to end up in the crumbling ruin of their once mighty House with nobody to speak for them among the staff. No, Slughorn would not do. They needed Snape back,  which would not be easy. If Professor Snape had wanted to return to Hogwarts, he would be there. H owever, Astoria had an idea. 

The ringing of the bell took by surprise. Fear seized her throat but she dismissed it quickly. It would be a hindrance now. She shoved her book, parchment and quill in the bag with  rash,  decidedly unladylike gestures. Gripping her wand into her free hand, she huddled together with the rest of Slytherins in her class. They carefully let the Gryffindors leave first then the Ravenclaws. It was a strategic move to put some distance between them and the lions. The older students had vivid recollections of the war and  the  year the school had been under Voldemort’s control. They held grudges they took out on Slytherins every chance they had. Slughorn seemed to be busy with something on his dais.  Astoria and her Slytherin companions flitted out quickly before a handful of tarrying Hufflepuffs. 

O nce safely absconded in her room in the Dungeons, Astoria added a box of the most expensive toffees Honeydukes had on sale and tied it with a golden ribbon to the box from Twilfitt and Tatting’s. Money was all she had these days. Not exactly, though. Thanks to a letter from one Hermione Granger, Daphne had secured employment as a shop assistant at Flourish and Blotts. It was the most modest position anyone in their family had ever held but it gave Daphne a sense of purpose.  The package she had put together also contained an extensive thank you note to their unexpected Golden Trio benefactor. Now more than ever she needed an in with Hermione Granger. 

TBC


	21. The Hollow Man

The mood at the breakfast table was uncharacteristically subdued with only the Gryffindors still being their boisterous selves. The Slytherins were almost universally quiet, sneaking discreet glances to the professors eating at the front who were more or less studiously ignoring each other. The whole castle knew Pomona Sprout and Horace Slughorn had been at each other’s throats for the past month and a half after she had caught wind of him nicking from the most unique of her pants. Slughorn and Hagrid had also had a row just the week before over the Potions Master’s tampering with the half-giant’s creatures for venom, a patch of fur or a claw. To make matters worse, Madam Pomfrey had learnt that Slughorn thought brewing the run-of-the-mill potions the hospital wing required to be a waste of his time and efforts.

Of course, if Snape had caught his students leaking information of his extracurricular activities to his colleagues, he would have skinned them alive. However, Slughorn had no idea he had been ratted out by those from his own House as a bit of belated payback for his neglect.

“We should get rid of him,” Evans hissed at Astoria’s side, glancing at their new Head of House. “We could make it look like an accident. Everyone would suspect us naturally but it’s not like our standing has room to worsen.”

Astoria grimaced turning a disdainful glare on her classmate. “At this rate, there would hardly be any cells left unoccupied by Slytherins in all of Azkaban,” she whispered.

“What do you propose that we do?” Pansy’s sister inquired, leaning over the table. “Continue to lay low and put up with this imbecile while what is left of the honour of House Slytherin goes down the drain?”

Astoria shot her an indignant look. “Of course not,” she replied acerbically. “We need to get Professor Snape back?”

All the Slytherins who were close to Astoria and had heard her stopped eating. The reputation of their former Head of House was at an all-time high. Regardless of the side they had taken during the war, everyone was in awe of Snape lying to the face of quite possibly the greatest Legilimens in history. It was a coronation of everything Slytherin was and admired: cunning, trickery and masterful skill at its finest.

“If you were Snape, would you come back here?” Talkalot wanted to know.

“He has a bleeding heart Gryffindor wife who also happens to be a young and quite lovely woman,” Astoria answered matter-of-factly as if that was supposed to explain everything.

Another heavy silence fell around Astoria. Travers gaped at her, his mouth actually hanging open in disbelief. “Have you recently hit your head, Astoria? Please tell me you don’t truly expect Severus Snape of all men to be impressed upon by a woman, a Gryffindor now less?”

“Any man can be swayed by the right woman,” Parkinson interjected. “However, you do still need the right woman.”

“We could give her a few Slytherin pointers, if we manage to persuade her to listen to us,” Astoria said leisurely.

“I still say you are both mad,” Fawley muttered.

Astoria used her serviette to tap at her lips gingerly. “Draco’s father wanted his one and only son to go to Durmstrang yet Mrs. Malfoy felt it was too far from home. Where did Draco go to school again?”

“I suppose we have nothing to lose by trying,” Travers said. “And if all fails, we get to make fun of Astoria and her silly ideas for the rest of the school year.”

Astoria smiled thinly at him. “Good. Now listen up: Hermione Granger is coming here as a guest lecturer after Christmas. We all need to be on our absolute best behaviour.”

“The others won’t be,” Parkinson protested. “Most of us went to school with Granger.”

“Good,” Fawley said. “That will make us stand out all the more.”

Astoria nodded. “Talk to everyone in our House. Whoever fails to behave will be hexed.”

A few raucous cries erupted from the Gryffindor table. Parkinson smirked. “If we succeed, imagine what Snape would do to them when he comes back.”

“Perhaps being married to one of them softened him,” Fawley said.

Everyone around him burst out laughing.

# # #

Hermione read the note from Astoria quickly. “I told you so,” she said in a sing-a-song voice to her husband who was sitting in the armchair, his nose buried in the day’s edition of the Prophet.

“What exactly did you tell me, might I inquire?” he said formally and without lowering the paper obscuring his face.

“That not everyone conforms to your jaded, cynical view of the world,” she replied with a grin. “Daphne Greengrass was hired by Flourish and Blotts.”

“No doubt in anticipation of your extensive patronage.”

“They would have got it, anyway.” She walked to where he was seated. “Admit it,” she said, pulling with a finger on the paper to see a fraction of his blank face. “I was right and you were wrong.”

“I shall do no such thing,” he muttered, pretending to read on.

Hermione climbed astride his lap, crumpling his paper between them.

“What is it that you think you are doing?” he said, displeasure marking his tone.

She didn’t reply but instead bent over to kiss him, her hands linking in the lank hair at his nape. “Admit it,” she repeated against his lips.

“The Dark Lord could not make me admit to anything I didn’t wish to.”

“I bet I could,” she said genially.

“This is a bet you are certain to loose,” he grumbled and them nibbled on her lower lip. “You are neglecting your gifts,” he added as his lips drifted to her neck, his mouth opening hot and wet against her skin.

“Only because I am going to send it back unopened.” She shuddered, her throat suddenly dry, as his deft fingers moved to dig into the flesh of her hips above her shirt. His extraordinary capacity for concentration and matching motor skills really did translate into everything he did. “My help comes free of charge.”

He paused, pulling back, his eyes settling onto her face, though his arms held possessively onto her middle. “Refusing a gift shows bad manners in the world the Slytherins and the Pure-Blood inhabit. Astoria would assume she has offended you somehow and would proceed to pester you with more presents, apologies and even visits. The easiest way to be rid of her is accept this attention.”

She sighed. “I wish all of this was in a book somewhere,” she said.

“It is.” He wand hand shot out and flickered rapidly through the air. A thick, green leather bound tome floated next to them. “This used to be taught at Hogwarts as well, until Dumbledore became Headmaster and decided the subject catered too much to Pure-Blood and Slytherin sensibilities.”

She snatched the book with a huff, her other hand still tangled in his hair. “Didn’t it occur to him this was of use to muggle-borns too? That it could help us better relate to the various people in the wizarding world?”

“Somebody’s adoration of the beloved Headmaster is waning,” he noted sarcastically.

She frowned and slid off him. The day had started so well. She didn’t want to deal with her mixed feelings about Dumbledore just now. “May I borrow this?” she asked holding up his book.

“Of course.” He straightened his newspaper with a flick of his wand and hid behind it again.

“Severus?”

He grunted a “yes”.

“I was right and you were wrong.”

“You are being childish,” he chided.

Hermione giggled before she returned the package Astoria had sent. The first box was one of Honeyduke’s finest truffles. That she could accept more easily, she supposed. The second one was more disturbing, though. It didn’t even feel like carton but velvet to the touch: a large, narrow, off white square with the ornate Twilfitt and Tatting emblem etched upon it. Twilfitt and Tatting was the fanciest robes shop in all of London. She opened it and froze. That couldn’t be what she thought, could it? The material looked like a kind of elaborate lace but it felt like silk, her hand gliding off it as if it were water. She grasped it by its flimsy spaghetti straps unable to believe her eyes. It was a cross between a corset of sorts and a nightie embellished with ribbons at the back, impossibly low cut and yet long enough to reach to Hermione’s calves. The colour was telling too, dark caramel, a shade of brown, exactly the hue resulting from mixing Slytherin green and Gryffindor red. The thing was demure and tantalizing at the same time. Apparently Astoria Greengrass had sent her the wizarding world’s equivalent of lingerie.

She dropped the item like a hot potato the moment she heard the paper rustle. _Slytherins_ , she thought exasperatedly.

The former head of Astoria’s House was watching her with a raised eye-brow. She could feel heat rise to her cheeks. So far her husband hadn’t seemed put off by Hermione’s predilection for jeans, comfortable, plain T-shirts and sensible, white cotton underwear. Quite the opposite, in fact. She rushed to close back the box.

“You needn’t worry,” he drawled in that low, silky voice of his that Hermione had recently discovered that it sent shivers up her spine. “I have no interest in whatever ridiculous robes Astoria saw fit to send you.”

“She didn’t send me robes. I wish she had!”

“What did she send you then?” he asked, sounding only mildly bored.

“Something even more ridiculous.” She decided to show it to him, after all. It wasn’t like she had purchased the thing herself. Twilfitt and Tatting was out of her price range. She held Astoria’s gift against her body displaying it for him.

“It is a slip,” he commented, his voice dry. “The kind Pure-Blood ladies wear customarily beneath their robes.”

It was her turn to lift a brow. “How do you know that?”

“I undressed exactly three Pure-Blood ladies in my lifetime,” he said, deadpan.

“I didn’t mean….”

He snapped the paper back in front of his face. “I am well aware,” he replied gruffly.

She shoved the troublesome slip back in its place. “Do you want a toffee?” she asked struggling with the unfamiliar Honeydukes packaging. She had a feeling she had never bought anything as expensive from the store.

“No.”

Hermione popped a toffee into her mouth without really tasting it. “I should get started on lunch.”

He folded his paper, set on the arm of the armchair and got up, arranging his coat with a flourish as he did. He had taken to quietly helping her prepare meals, though his enthusiasm for consuming them had not improved. The week had flown by before she noticed. The Hunter’s Moon was tomorrow. After that she could not put off returning to work any longer, a thought that brought a nervous knot to the pit of her stomach. She didn’t relish the thought of lying to Kingsley, still angry with him for what he had asked of her, but then maybe she and Severus would gain conclusive proof of the threat to the Muggle world the following night, and maybe she wouldn’t have to. Making Kingsley eat his words, that was something she was very much looking forward to.

# # #

Out of the corner of one eye, Severus watched his wife bite into a ham and pickle sandwich. A purplish bruise marred the porcelain of her neck, the taste of which he knew intimately now. The week had flown by faster than he could have anticipated. It still felt confining having her in such close quarters with him. He hadn’t actually lived with anyone since his parents’ death but Hermione wasn’t half bad. Of course, the recently added physical component to their non-relationship made up for most of the reason he didn’t mind having her around.

His young, vibrant and enthusiastic wife had woken the potential of his long dormant body. He had given into all of his wildest and most depraved desires in the past few days with some left to spare, too. Hermione’s inexperience meant that he could mold her into his perfect lover. Despite the occasional frisson of guilt he still felt, he found that he had no inclination to stop himself. The years of self-denial seemed to have made him insatiable and so far Hermione had not turned him down, as eager to learn from him on this topic as she she had been with Potions and DADA in school. He shook his head to dispel the thought of her as his former pupil from his mind, effectively barring it behind an Occlumency wall.

She craved his approval here, too. He could see it in her bright, still innocent brown eyes and it was unfalteringly heady. He was drunk on it. The way she whispered his name in the heat of passion, the raspy quality of her voice as she babbled pleas, promising him anything he might want and meaning it. He tried hard not to dwell on the fact that the hands he was running all over Hermione’s impeccable, fine-pored skin as if he had every right to, were the blood-drenched hands of a murderer.

When she wasn’t giving into his insistent caresses as he pulled her over the nearest available surface, she made food or ploughed her way through his books. As long as he allowed her access to them, she didn’t bother him much, leaving him to his own devices both in the house and tiny potions lab in the former coal shed. When she thought he wasn’t paying attention or watching, she cleaned, mixing Muggle ways and magic. The dust was gone and the furniture and the appliances had lost their coat of dirt. There was no hiding their shabby condition but it had been years since everything had been so clean. Even the old, familiar odour of mildew and humid staleness was gone replaced by one of pine fresh cleaning products. He had yet to comment on it because truth be told, he had no idea what to say.

Raised in a manor with a house elf and magic, his mother had naturally never been much for housekeeping. Her waning interest in anything around her, as his father’s abuse had worsened, had not helped matters, either. As a child and then later, when home from Hogwarts, he had helped her as much as he could but he had no tutelage on this issue, and with next to no guidance from his mother, he had been relegated to the more physically challenging of the tasks, such as carrying water from the pump outside. He had never paid much attention to the misery of his house because it had always been like this: never quite clean, always dusty, with walls eaten away by mould and water damage. Even his forcing Wormtail to take care of it had been more about revenge than anything else.

He had no idea how to quantify Hermione’s sudden decision to behave as if their marriage was genuine, aside from pulling her into his bed. He knew she wanted to save him and that she harboured romantic notions that had no relation to him or reality. Was this part of her grand plan to change him? Did it even matter as long as she was perfectly willing and even keen on allowing him access to her body?

It took him a moment to notice she had stopped talking. She had been perorating about the habits and manners of Pure-Blood families. Now she was eyeing his barely touched lunch with obvious distress. Suddenly he was suffocating, unable to bear her presence for a moment longer. He tossed his half-eaten sandwich onto his plate and stalked out.

He took a stroll through the city, stopping by the old and now abandoned playground where he had first seen Lily. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the way the sun had caught into the fiery red of her hair. He still loved Lily. He wished he could give both his life and what was left of his soul in exchange for her. And above all, it still hurt. Worse than being tortured, worse than having his neck nearly torn out by a giant snake, worse than the familiar sting of humiliation and rejection. It felt as if there was a howling beast tearing at his insides, ripping parts of his heart and chewing on them at its leisure. He couldn’t breathe, his chest suddenly compressed as if in a vice.

Still he forced himself to move. He was exceedingly good at forcing himself to move through the pain, to do things he abhorred. He went by Lily’s house, now long sold. Unlike Spinner’s End, that much better street was still inhabited, still lively, still vibrating with the sounds of voice and laughter. The house was not even the same colour. Whoever had bought it had renovated it. Lily was gone as if she had never existed. As if she were a figment of half-remembered dream. All that remained of her were the green eyes in the face of James Potter. But Severus’ mission was over, her son was safe and a grown man moving on his life, while he was stuck haunting places that had long lost the memory of her.

The sweat that beaded on the back of his neck was cold, though his body felt feverish. He turned around sharply and strolled back home. The pain was all but unbearable and the physical exertion of his brisk walk did little to alleviate it. He found Hermione on the couch in his sitting room. Her wide, warm brown eyes shifted from her book to him, filled with a concern that scorched him. It was only then that he realised it was almost dark outside. He had no precise idea how long he had been drifting aimlessly through the city of his tormented childhood.

He slammed the door shut behind him, using his wand to bolt it and fortify his protection spells once more. She asked her where he had been, needlessly adding that she had been worried, inquiring how he was. Ever since he had been revealed as being on their side, they were all inquiring about his health. They all looked and sounded so worried, while before they had been whispering viciously in his wake and even hoping for his death. Her precious friends chief among them. Did she truly believe that a Legilimens wouldn’t know? Suddenly he was no longer the nasty, greasy bat of the Dungeons but a hero.

He didn’t answer her, instead, he lunged for her, shook her out of her seat, his book tumbling from her grasp, and crushed his mouth to hers. If she was amiable to have the hands of an oily git like him all over her, then he was all too eager to comply. He would take his pain and fury and despair out on sweet Hermione’s supple, delicate body. He sank his uneven teeth cruelly into the already bruised flesh of her neck. She cried out in response. Only then did he realise she was trembling against him. He tasted blood on his tongue. He released her in an instant and withdrew his wand.

“Vulnera Sanentur,” he whispered in a song-like voice, running his wand over the side of her neck he had just injured.

Her pupils were wide as she watched him in unabashed fascination and mounting concern. “Severus,” she said, cupping the side of his face with a soft, gentle hand. “What’s wrong?”

“I am,” he replied dully. “You should have never let me do this…. You should have never let me touch you.”

“Are we on this again?” she asked, frowning. “I thought we had moved past it.”

He stepped outside her grasp. “I think I should sleep here tonight.” He was accustomed to self-denial. He could wane himself off her.

“Why? What happened? One moment we were having lunch and then you….” She moved closer to him as she talked.

“Stop,” he interrupted sharply. “Are you incapable of shielding yourself from danger? Go upstairs and ward the door!”

She raised her chin in that haughty manner that he had seen before in those from her House. Blasted Gryffindor pride and recklessness mistaken for courage! He was shaken out of his thoughts by her pulling of her T-shirt over her head. His mouth went dry and his throat tightened. She was too honest and inexperienced to be versed in seduction or know any sly tricks. However, the sheer, adorably awkward sincerity of her offer unmoored him all the more. It made him feel unhinged, released from the trappings of his will power and control, which made him more dangerous than ever. If he could see that, why didn’t she?

“You need something from me,” she said, her voice strangely quiet. “Don’t think that I can’t tell. Take it…. I want you to.”

“Foolish, foolish little Gryffindor,” he spat venomously. “Little do you what you are offering and to whom!”

It had been a fatal mistake to phrase like something she might view as a challenge. He recognized it a moment too late as the look in her eyes hardened, the set of her jaw determined.

“Then show me,” she dared.

He slithered back to her, one of his hands gripping her vulnerable left wrist, his fingers digging mercilessly into her flesh. “I shall,” he growled. The turmoil bubbling within him had subsided only for a few moments of clarity. It was rising again now, crashing over him like a tidal wave. If she had refused his clemency, then tonight she should meet the monster even her superior at the Ministry knew better than to mistake for a hero.

He dragged her upstairs without another word. She stumbled up the stairs a little but followed without protest and complaint. Silly, silly girl! He shut the door to his bedroom and switched on the unforgiving light bulb spilling an unhealthy neon glow from above. His wand came up before she could speak again.

“Legilimens,” he thundered.

Tonight he wanted more than her body. Tonight he wanted her mind as well. She didn’t resist the intrusion, nor did she try to put up the meagre walls she had so poorly developed from her readings. Instead she clung to him, welcoming him, even as he tore through her mind, sifting brutally through memories and feelings, basking in the still mostly pristine tenderness of her mind. He saw treasured childhood memories, private shame and doubts, secrets fears and buried longings, pain and restless, sleepless nights, guilt and anguish over the fate of parents, the quiet despair of not knowing what had become of them. He saw memories of friendship and comfort and love. He saw the horrors of a war she had been too young to fight in but fight she did nonetheless. He saw timid kisses and the furore of first love. He saw the loneliness of her years in Muggle school. He saw the sting of jealousy and the heart-ache of her first break-up. He saw her thirst for knowledge and a drive to excel worthy of a Slytherin. And above all else, he saw light and hope. So much of both, despite everything she had witnessed and been through.

When he withdrew, he thought he now possessed a better understanding of the Dark Lord’s delight in invading and consuming minds. He pushed his frock coat off his shoulders. Hermione was still dazed as he pushed her into bed. He stuck his wand under the pillow. He wanted more of her mind later, as he took her body, too.

TBC


	22. Heart and Mind

Severus was staring into the pitch black darkness of his room, fighting a mounting sense of claustrophobia and suffocation. He was warm, hot actually, sweat trickling down his back and soaking into the scratchy sheet beneath his supine body. His heart was racing, trying to catch up with the mad whirl of his mind. Hermione slumbered wrapped around him like ivy on a wall. To be fair, there was not much room on the narrow bed for them to sleep any other way. Her hair tickled the skin of his chest. His naked chest. They were both nude beneath his well worn blanket.

He had  not just crossed a line that night. He had obliterated  each and every one of them and kept going. He had taken her mind along with her body, astounded at his welcome at every step.  He had let her undress him under the too bright light of the lone bulb hanging from his ceiling. He had even helped. Had it been him who had taken his shirt of or her? He couldn’t be certain. So much of the delirium of the previous hours was blurry. That in itself was terrifying enough. He couldn’t recall the last time he had been anything but self-possessed,  anything but fully aware and fully in control of himself,  of  his reactions and  of his body. 

T he loss of control was staggering, more unsettling than the fact that she had seen him. All of him.  The protruding bones of his torso, his too thin pale limbs covered by uneven smatterings of dark hair, and the scars. His right knee had been completely shattered during a battle early in the First War, when he had still been a true Death Eater. It had  been healed and was  perfectly functional but the result was an ugly, misshapen mass where the bone had been reset too late to look like it had before. Then there was the evidence of the Dark Lord’s displeasure etched all over his upper arms, his shoulders, his back and his chest.  Nobody failed the Dark Lord  without paying dearly for it . Nobody failed to return to him in a timely manner and didn’t suffer through several violent bouts of Cruciatus as well as have a few hexes tested on t he body . 

T he skin on his back was criss-crossed by marks as those that would have been left behind by repeated instances of vicious whipping. There were even dips where skin and muscles had been torn out and hastily regrown so that the torment could begin anew and immediately.  One shoulder looked as if somebody had attempted to skin him, which was precisely what the Dark Lord had done. He still remember the  agony of it.  Other scars coiled like silver rattle snakes down his upper arms or wrapped on his chest like mementos of cuts and burns. One nipple had been split in half, the remaining nub unnaturally dark and stilted as it jutted from a whorl raised, knotted skin that disappeared into a patch of wiry hairs left behind from where entire tufts had been ripped out as his skin had been torn open. He had stubbornly refused to scream at first, unwilling to humiliate himself in front of  whole gathering of Death Eaters. Bellatrix had cackled the whole time as the Dark Lord had gone on and on and on until Severus had been forced to relinquish what was left of his dignity and howl his pain to the stars. Hermione wasn’t the only who heard Bella’s mad laughter in her dreams.

It had been  the first but hardly the only time that had happened. During the First War, the Dark Lord had regaled him with the Cruciatus for any mistake,  real or imaginary, but he had never been tortured as thoroughly  as when he had been late to answer a newly restored Voldemort’s summons. Severus had known to what he was headed the instant Dumbledore had given him the mission to return to his former master in order to spy for the Order. He had known but he had gone,  explained himself the best he could to the Dark Lord, taken the torture and the public humiliation then staggered back into Dumbledore’s office, bloody and shaking, his entire body hurting like one raw nerve, and told his true master that he had succeeded before collapsing into blissful oblivion. Dumbledore had patched him the best he could—going to the hospital wing was out of the question, given the  sensitive nature of Severus’ assignment—which partially explained the extensive scarring left behind, and then sent him to teach his class in the morning. 

More than the scars, however, he found himself haunted by the memory of Hermione’s gaze and hands on the Dark Mark. It had faded to ashen grey, marring his skin in the shape of dimming tattoo. It showcased the worst of him, the monster that had devoured his innocent, well-meaning young wife earlier that night. Hermione didn’t deserve what had just happened between them. He had taken and taken and pushed and pushed, feasting on her body and on her mind, barely having the presence of spirit to make it enjoyable for her as well. In the depths of his despairing depravity, even as the darkness in him consumed him, he had realised she had never been more beautiful to him. The arm wrapped around her waist tightened reflexively. She hadn’t turned him away tonight, hadn’t shied away, hadn’t been frightened even in her thoughts, instead sliding willingly into the ceaseless pit of the worst of him.

T here it was: the one line he truly feared. It would have never occurred to him to do anything like this with Lily.  The mere notion was profoundly abhorrent. He was positive that one look of hers would have been enough to stay his hand.  He had never even gone as far when sleeping with women from the Dark Lord’s entourage. He had never taken off his clothes with them, either.  Yet with Hermione he had kept nothing of bay, not physically and certainly not mentally. He had been naked in every way conceivable in front of her. He had hidden nothing. He had shown  himself  at his absolute worst  to her .  H is  losing his painstakingly built control with her was staggering enough.  However,  the other conclusion was even m ore troubling : that Hermione had seen the very worst of him, absorbed it into herself and accepted it. She had accepted him as he  truly. A s nobody— not even Dumbledore, not his fellow Death Eaters, not the Dark Lord and least of all, Lily—ha d seen him before her. 

#  # #

That Hermione woke up alone was no surprise. Severus was always up before she was. That she had had a good night’s sleep with no nightmares was also hardly astonishing. What they had done the prior evening had depleted her in every way imaginable. She winced as she sat up. She was sore just about everywhere. She pushed aside the blanket and surveyed her body taking s tock of the bruises, some finger-shaped, other made by mismatched teeth, and the scratches marking her skin. She got up gingerly and padded to the mirror.  Her left toe hurt  badly. She suspected she had banged  it  into the bed frame at some point she failed to recall.

The woman glimpsed into the narrow, slightly blurry mirror in Severus’ bedroom was a stranger. Her hair was visibly tangled in knots, cascading around her flushed face. Her lips were reddened and swollen and there was a drop of dried blood in the corner of her mouth. Hers or his? She couldn’t be sure. They both had done quite a bit of biting. She looked into her own too bright eyes, wondering where that shockingly beautiful siren had come from. Had she been inside her the whole time, just waiting to be shaken from slumber? 

Logically she knew she should be disturbed or at leas, frightened by what had happened between her and her husband the night before but what she felt was more like elation. Her whole body practically vibrated. Hermione had met boys who had wanted her physically and after years of being the ugly duckling, it had been very gratifying, but she had always doubted she would find someone who could want her for her mind first. Stripped to its basics, sex was easy enough to understand. She had always known it was primarily about the body. Apparently, to Severus Snape, it was about the mind as well. He wanted her for both. She had sensed that clearly from him when he had been in her head.

She shivered at the memory of that powerhouse mind she had been crushing on for a while now melding into hers completely, a torrent of live electric current delving into every corner of her consciousness, setting everything ablaze, until she had been consumed as eagerly as she consumed herself. By the time he had touched her, she had been delirious with desire only for him to envelop her into a truly desperate embrace. Then she had been lost, adrift at sea, and found, shattered and put together again, taken and taking. 

Any sane woman would probably be running by now but Hermione liked to believe she was not just any woman.  She had always known Severus was dark and dangerous. She had seen snatches and h ints of it every now and then even  back in school but that was all they had been, vague innuendoes that a great, now completely wholesome power, lurked beneath those black robes and even blacker eyes. She had g otten an eyeful of  just how dark and dangerous Severus Snape could be that night. Proof of it was etched across her skin and imprinted  into her mind. It should have felt wrong. It should have been even worse in the clear light of day but it wasn’t. Not to her. Instead it felt  as exhilarating  as the  intense rattling her nerves had taken in the night. 

An absent finger stroked at her stinging lower lip,  flashing to the dream she had had of him like a Dark Lord bent not on world domination but on having her. The thought of a man as dark, as dangerous and as brilliant as him wanting her, desiring her above all else, enough not to hold anything back in their bed, was what craving a drug had to be like. It wasn’t proper, it wasn’t nice, it was a contradiction of everything instilled into her both at home and at Hogwarts.  That she wanted it to be like that as well represented something that was expected that she kept buried deep within her at all times, n egating for as long as she lived. It wasn’t fitting for the i mage of the golden Gryffindor princess and war heroine  that she was supposed to i ncarnate . But there was nobody here to pose for.  And she was tired. So tired of pretending that everything the happy ending had cost, had not left her unable to  immerse herself completely into the charmed life she was supposed to have now. 

S he wasn’t happy. She had nightmares and some night she couldn’t sleep at all, thinking her room was infected with the laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange.  Some days she was jumpy and hyperalert. On others all she could think of were the dead.  On her worst days she thought  that  the dead were lucky ones. She was wrecked with guilt over erasing her parents’ memory, necessary as it had been at the time. What kind of child makes her own parents forget that they had her in the first place? Were they even still alive? Would she ever find t hem ? Would she be able to reverse the spell when and if she did? Would they forgive her when and if they got their memory back?  The war had taken things from her and she was sick and tired of acting whole.  And she wanted to do unspeakable things with her almost universally reviled husband because she was attracted to his intellect,  to  his power and  to  his darkness.  Right now she couldn’t care less  she wasn’t supposed to want or admit to any of that. 

S he fished her wand f rom where it seemed to have rolled under the bed and cast a cleaning then a healing  charm , though she kept a few of the marks left behind by the madness of the night before. She felt no shame at how she had gotten them. They felt almost liberating.  She pulled one of her husband’s grey night shirts from a drawer. She figured they were past boundaries now  and went downstairs to find him. 

I n the kitchen, breakfast was cooking all by itself. Her husband stood with her back to her, looking out into the rain-soaked, murky co untry land sprawling beyond t he one tiny window in the room.  He was uncharacteristically casual only in trousers and one of his long, white shirts. He turned the moment she came in, frowning, his demeanour strangely subdued. Hermione flitted to him and wrapped her arms around his torso. 

“I don’t think you need to worry about me wanting to change you,” she said. “I want you too much just the way you are.” She kissed him on the lips, her hands already drifting beneath the thick material of his shirt.

H is mouth remained slack yet unresponsive against her and she drew  back , confused.  Surely they had long passed any hesitation now. 

“Hermione, I am sorry,” he said, each word a jagged piece of glass. He looked to be in pain as he spoke. “What I did to you last night is inexcusable.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Why was it always one step forward, two back with him? Why couldn’t he just roll with it and enjoy for once? They had a creature from another world to face after nightfall and if they made it through, she would have to go back to work and to the real world tomorrow.  They were on borrowed time. 

“I’m not looking for excuses and apologies,” she said firmly. “What I want is to do it all over again.”

“You cannot possibly mean that,” he countered, his voice low and gruff but devoid of its usual snarky bite.

This time she did roll her eyes. “Y ou were in  my mind. Didn’t you notice it wasn’t pain I was screaming in? ” She locked eyes with him. “ See for yourself.”

He turned his face away, the corner of his lips drawing downwards.

“Do you want me to beg?” she teased, nuzzling into the tangle of scars Nagini had left behind on his neck. Beneath his shirt, she found the scratches she had left on his back unhealed.

“No,” he ground out and pushed her off him. 

“Honestly! If you were really the big, dark wizard you are so intent on convincing everyone that you are, you wouldn’t have so many scruples all the time.”

His face schooled into a familiar unreadable expression, though the vehemence in his eyes was unmistakable. He had made his mind, she recognized, and would not be swayed.

“Fine,” she huffed. “Let’s talk then. Starting with what got your wand into a twist yesterday at lunch.” 

Her punch landed. There was a faint tremor in his eyelashes. It was gone in a blink of an eye but living in such close quarters with him with the added bonus of their physical intimacy, she was beginning to understand the utterly subtle language of his body.

He whirled around, managing to make it look dramatic even without the effect of his dark robes.

“I’m not the Gothic romance ingénue to your Byronic hero,” she called after him. “All those trips you have taken into my mind should be ample proof of it. I’ve been to war too and I’ve fought. I left permanent scars on a terrified girl’s face when she betrayed Dumbledore’s Army to protect her own mother. Do you have any idea what I would have done to Bellatrix Lestrange if given half a chance? I still dream of it too. Of the words I would have liked to carve into her skin if only I could. I am not like Harry or Ron. Voldemort killed Harry’s parents and Harry still felt sorry for him because he couldn’t feel love or friendship like the rest of us. But I’m not Harry! I hate Voldemort for what he’s done. I am glad he is gone!” 

He turned around, his blazing onyx eyes meeting hers steadily. “ As am I. My only regret is that I did not kill him myself.” He took a step towards her. “The Dark Lord cast a large, dark shadow over your childhood and early youth. These sentiments are only natural. They do not mean you are like me.”

“I would hope so. It would be terribly boring if we were perfect copies of each other.”

His lips twisted upwards into a familiar close-mouthed, wry smile.

“Don’t presume to tell me what I can or cannot want,” she said sternly. 

“Very well.” His wand cut through the air, stopping the commotion of cooking breakfast. “There will be no discussion of where I went yesterday,” he added stiffly, his expression darkening with each word.

“I didn’t truly believe it would be.” 

H e raised a doubtful eye-brow at her.

“All right, maybe I believed it a little,” she admitted with a small smile. She suspected it had something to do with Lily but she quickly banished the thought, not wanting him to stumble across it in her mind. She figured there was no colder shower than the mentioning of her. 

Much later, they lay entwined on a magically extended version of the couch in the sitting room, fighting to catch their breath. Despite her assurances, he had been much more tentative this time, almost uncertain of his welcome. There had been no Legilimency, either, beyond the occasional, cautious p alpating of her  surface thoughts  when their eyes met.  Even so Hermione had been amply pleased to discover Legilimency could be put to amazing practical use s in bed. She sighed dreamily, rubbing her foot lazily up and down his calf, the fine hairs there tickling h er skin. 

“Do they hurt?” she asked, tracing the raised edge of a scar on his chest with her finger. 

He stiffened against her and was quiet for so long that she feared he might not answer at all. “Not any more,” he whispered, the register of his gravely baritone even lower than the norm. 

“Still the skin must feel uncomfortable at times. I bet they itch too,” she pressed, suspecting he wasn’t telling her the whole story. His body was a map of pain. Her own two scars—the one from the battle at the Department of Mysteries and the slur carved into her arm—seemed almost inconsequential by comparison. 

“I have devised a soothing paste I apply from time to time,” he replied in that bored drawl he often affected and that she had begun to suspect was practised.

“I could help you with it,” she offered immediately. “I mean, it must be hard to reach some places, especially on your back.” Her palm rubbed over an indentation on his left elbow before she raised her head a bit for a better look. “This is a Muggle surgical scar,” she realised. “My mother has a similar one from her appendectomy. Of course, it’s differently placed…. Did you break your arm as a child?” she guessed trying to turn over his arm that had gone rigid in her grasp.

He wrenched himself free of her and sat up. “We need to prepare ourselves for the road.”  He retrieved his shirt from the floor and put it back on. 

H ermione sat up as well, letting the blanket he had accio-ed from the cupboard under the stairs pool around her middle. “It was your father who broke your arm, didn’t he?” 

“No,” he said, his voice only slightly raspy.

“I know what he did to you and your mother. You don’t have to….”

His head turned only a sliver. “It wasn’t him,” he uttered, his voice cold and hard like a stone.  He lifted his arm, letting his unbuttoned shirt sleeve slide down a little. “This is from him. As well as a few others. I broke my arm when I was pushed down the stairs of the Muggle school I attended. There was a group of boys there who were no kinder to me than the Marauders would be at Hogwarts. The teachers were as interested in hearing what I had to say about such incidents as Dumbledore was when Black and Lupin tried to kill me.” 

Hermione froze, her heart giving a painful lurch in her chest. She opened her mouth to say something as he pulled on his trousers and disappeared into the kitchen but every word that sprang to mind sounded too much like a useless platitude. The more she learnt about him, the worse it got.  Virtually all he had known his whole life was pain and violence.  Was it any surprise then the way he was? That he could be bitter, resentful and out to take his misery on the closest available target?  Yet he was capable of deeply abiding love that transcended death. She was positive it hadn’t been demonstrated or taught to him.  No, that was all him.  His love for Lily came from some deeply buried source within  his soul that resided beneath the many layers of fury, suffering, darkness and long held grudges against everyone and everything.  It was what had created the now wilted spellbinding imagery surrounding their short-lived mental connection. 

S he stretched back on the couch, hiding beneath the blanket. How could she have thought he was not romantic? Anyone could  buy  flowers and chocolates, light a few candles and have a dinner for two. These things were cliches for a reason.  Because everyone could do them. At the end of day, they meant nothing.  Severus Snape  had changed sides in a war, begged his enemy on his knees, protected the son of his bully to the point of being ready to lay down his life for him, spied and lived in terrible danger every day  for years . All for the memory of the woman he loved. A woman he had never even been with. 

H er husband’s return broke her out of her reverie. Just then he surprised her again. He came back levitating two steaming mugs and two plates filled with buttered toast, hard boiled eggs and some of the packaged biscuits she had bought earlier in the week.

“No potion,” he explained as he handed her one of the two cups of coffee, while he placed the plates on the couch between them before he sat himself on the edge. 

“Thank you,” she said past the lump forming in her throat. He had added cream and sugar. It was just as she liked it. Of course, he was too observant not to know how she took it already but the simple fact that he gone to the trouble….

He took a large bite out of a piece of toast  with a relish she had never witnessed him employ with food before. His dark hair fell into his face and she couldn’t perceive much of his expression but to her eyes it seemed that he was intent on showing her the he was indeed eating.  Hermione burrowed her nose into the flagrant steam of the coffee he had refrained from making as strong as he preferred for her sake. She was being silly, getting emotional over something so tiny. But then wasn’t life made of small things? She had certainly grown to appreciate them after the horror of the final year of the war. 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not replying to all your wonderful comments yet. Please know that they are greatly appreciated as well as great food for thought. Thank you! Please keep them coming. I'll answer them as soon as I can.


	23. Falls The Shadow

Hermione stuck her hands into a pair of warm, woollen gloves, as she and Severus came out of his house. He pulled out his wand and the door locked and bolted on its own. It was chilly and wet outside. It was always humid in Cokeworth, it seemed. She turned to her husband expectantly. He doned his voluminous cloak on and wrapped it around himself with a flourish, his pale hands vanishing within the mass of black material. He looked imposing like this and more than a little distracting. She shook her head to clear it of the sudden, visceral intrusion of an image of the two of them entwined on his cloak in front of the fireplace in the sitting room behind them.

“You will need to conjure or transfigurate a broom,” he said in a clipped tone.

Hermione blinked, feeling her cheeks heat up. Sex had never weighted heavily on her mind in any shape or form. She had always been too busy with other things. She couldn’t turn into a woman obsessed in only a week, could she? “Aren’t we going to apparate?” she asked a little breathlessly, a small cloud of white mist forming in front of her face.

“All the way to Ireland and to a place none of us has visited before? I would hardly think so. Did they not teach you about the range limitations of apparition in your class? Or did they hand you a permit simply by virtue of being a member of the Golden Trio?”

“How do you know I’ve never been to Ireland before?” she temporized. These days she apparated everywhere. She had only touched a broom a week ago in order to jump out of a window of the Prince Manor and that had been more than enough for a while.

“I do not know,” he began caustically. “Have ever been to County Meath in Ireland?”

She winced. “I haven’t.”

“Then we shall fly there. Splinching does not factor into my plans for the evening.”

“I’m not much of a flier,” she admitted quietly. She had joked about it with him before—a fraught shudder singed through her as she recalled the precise circumstances—but apparently he hadn’t taken her seriously.

He frowned as he took a step towards her, his boots making no noise as they skidded across the filthy cobblestones of Spinner’s End. “Are you afraid of heights?”

“A little but not to the extent that it’s debilitating.” It was true. She wasn’t exactly fond of high places but she didn’t have a phobia, either.

“I am surprised a know-it-all such as yourself could find within her to tolerate being less than exceptional at something.”

“I’m sure there are a few things you don’t excel at, either,” she shot back tartly.

His mouth twitched into a knowing smile. “Name one.”

The words “social interactions” were on the tip of her tongue but she pulled them back at the last moment. Given all she had learnt of him, they would have come across as cruel. Considering his experiences, it was hardly astonishing that he was wary around people. “I’ve never seen you dance,” she said lamely.

“That does not mean I am unable,” he said with raised eyebrow.

“Really?” She tried to contain her excitement. “So you do dance?” She wasn’t a great dancer, either, but her curiosity was piqued, already turning over several plots to get him to dance in her mind.

“As much I would like to stay and chat in the middle of the street, I am afraid we must be going, especially this close to sunset.”

He was before her in an instant, one arm going beneath her knees, while the other wrapped securely around her waist, as he lifted her in his arms bridal style. She was once again reminded that he was a lot stronger than he looked. She yelped in reaction, her arms going instinctively around his neck for support.

“What are you doing?” she protested.

“Flying,” he replied nonplussed.

The folds of his cloak enveloped her all the way to her neck, as a familiar scent of citrus, spicy herbs and clean male musk filled her nostrils. A second later they were airborne. She gave a sharp cry and held onto him tighter, her fingers digging into the slightly abrasive wool of his frock coat. She burrowed against him, as the frigid air whistled around her face, prickling at her nose and cheeks, and hid her visage into his chest. Her heart and stomach were doing somersaults that had nothing to do with her discomfort with flying. He felt both solid and fluid all around her, her vision greeted only by black smoke.

# # #

Severus set Hermione down next to ruined grey walls covered in yellowed, frost spotted vegetation. The ground was muddy, dotted from place to place by the small patches of snow. Beyond what was left of the Dunshaughlin workhouse stretched the famine era graveyard.

“According to my reading, there must be a thousand people buried here… perhaps more. If Umbra can reanimate them all, it’ll have enough to cut a bloody path through Ireland and make more Inferi of the corpses of the victims,” she said, struck by a chill that had nothing to do with the freezing wind whipping around them.

Severus glanced at the crimson slashes still adorning the darkened sunset skies. “At first, there were only one or two new graves from which it raised Inferi. If Umbra is intelligent and we have not reason to believe otherwise, for Dementors possess intellect too, it might be that it has taken it a while to get accustomed to our world and test the effects of its magic in it.”

A twig snapped beneath Hermione’s left sole as they stole through a broken archway and into the dilapidated workhouse. They needed a secluded place from which to watch the rising of the Hunter’s Moon. They took opposite positions on the sides of a large hole into a half collapsed ashen wall, wands clutched in their hands.

The night was murky, heavy with shadows, despite the few twinkling stars in the skies. Clouds shifted over the silvery prickle points until at last, one of them slid from the face of a giant moon that was almost carmine in colour. Right, Hermione recalled, the Hunter’s Moon was also named the Blood Moon. A sliver of a black cloud scattered across the surface of the night queen that delved from red to an angry, dark pink.

Magic sang omniously beneath Hermione’s skin. Dread set heavily at the bottom of her stomach. Something was approaching and a part of her lizard brain recognized it as a reason to flood her body with adrenaline. The cold forgotten, she slipped off her glove and grasped her wand against her naked skin. Just then it got even colder. The air felt like icicles as it sank into her lungs uncomfortably. Horror rolled over her like a heavy blanket. She thought she heard Bellatrix’s laughter in it. Scowling, she pushed at it, forcing her mind to work through it until reason emerged. If she felt that way, it meant Dementors were close. Or something much like them, anyway.

Instinctively she lifted her wand and stole a gaze at Severus standing a few feet away from her. He was virtually indistinguishable from the shadows, only his pallid face gleaming slightly in the scrimpy light provided by the moon. It made sense. He was exceedingly adept at blending into darkness. Nobody she knew could had managed quite so well. Yet he was on the side of the Light.

_We are lucky to have him_ , she thought, returning her attention to the night sky. _We were lucky to have him during the war and we are lucky to have him now._

Darkness dripped across the surface of the moon like black ink dissolving into bloody waters. It wasn’t just another cloud, she realised a second later. It was something much like a giant Dementor sliding closer to the mostly unmarked graves filling the field ahead. It was too high in the sky to be gliding like Dementors, though. Umbra could fly, she understood with a sinking feeling. The blackness stretched a large hand made of fleshless talons over the cemetery. A sound, much like the screeching of sharp nails on glass, vibrated through the air. It was loud and unbearable. Hermione felt as it was trying to peel her skin off, the noise seeping into her bones, making them ache. Her teeth trembled in the gums as pain shot through her temples. Desperate, she cast a Muffliato.

The screeching stopped and the dark hand formed a fist before Umbra whirled around and started floating towards where they were hidden at an alarmingly brisk pace. The cat was out of the bag. Seeing no other recourse, Hermione darted from her hiding place and raised her wand pointing it at the invader from another world.

“Expecto patronum,” she shouted.

The silvery otter burst from the tip of her wand and stood between her and the attacker. Umbra stretched its hand again and grasped the gauzy animal flinging it to the side with ease as it dissolved into tiny sparkles that vanished into the night air.

“Protego,” Hermione cried out.

Despite the charm, Umbra advanced on her and then a moment later she felt it, like a giant, icy fist wrapping around her mind and squeezing. Breath left her chest as she struggled against the invasion. Her throat constricted and every muscle she had locked in place. Dimly she felt her wand slide from her grasp. The unnatural shrieking reverberated against the walls of her skull. That was the creature speaking, she comprehended. She tried pulling up what little Occlumency walls she had but they shattered upon impact leaving her thoughts and memories and feelings defenceless.

“Legilimens,” she heard as if coming from far away.

Severus was in her mind momentarily standing between her and fist threatening to snuff it out. She shuddered from impact as bright green brick walls converged around her besieged psyche. It was like a blow that sent her thudding to the hard ground with a strangled grunt. The fist loosened. A rapid fire of memories she didn’t recognize as her own pushed into Umbra’s hold. They flew too fast for her to make them out. The fist slipped off her like a dark veil from a marble statue.

Suddenly able to breathe, Hermione coughed and groped blindly for her wand. Snape was literally between her and Umbra, though his own wand was pointed at Hermione herself. When she retrieved her wand, he pivoted on a heel and they both tried shooting a barrage of curses and hexes at their enemy. Nothing made so much as a dent.

The screeching sound returned and the ground shook beneath their feet. Once, twice. Past Umbra, in the blood drenched moonlight, Hermione saw the graves crack open. She had no illusions about what would come pouring out. A thousand of them or maybe more.

Umbra flicked one long talon at them and they both tumbled to the ground, wands flung from their grasps. Up close, it wasn’t so formless any more but it was truly huge: a lengthy torso that poured into a mass of what looked like tarry smoke hovering high above ground. Its shoulders swirled as they made a cloak of their own while long, tentacle like arms unravelled from within. The head was not visible, appearing merely like a massive hood of pure darkness. It bent over Hermione’s prone form as she struggled to regain her wand again, breathless and sore and overcame by creeping despair. Was it her own or did it came from the creature?

As Hermione raised her wand again, she saw eyes into the blackness that would make Umbra’s head: they were milky white and expressionless. It slipped into her mind again with shocking ease. The touch was different from the fist of before: less of an attack, more of an exploration. Hermione had never experienced anything like this. Umbra’s mind felt cold and wholly alien, burdened with unending malice, monstrous. It crushed even when it didn’t mean to. Panic gripped Hermione despite herself and she ran to the only place in her mind she could think of as sanctuary.

The garden of lilies was obliterated, the stone fence reduced to rubble, the flowers dead and blackened, a still pulsing wound at the place of the little sprout she had once tried to keep alive. An indistinct sense of loss washed over her and on its footsteps came a barrage of memories. Her parents’ faces as she obliviated them, her fear that she might never recover them, standing amid the bodies of those dead during the battle of Hogwarts, the pain of Bellatrix carving into her arm, the sting of the insult… _mudblood_. And above all, the feeling of inadequacy that she remembered having her whole life. She had always known she was different but until the visit from Hogwarts, she had never know just why and how. She had straddled the line between the two worlds ever since she had first set foot on the train. If she chose to live as a Muggle, she would have to carve out an essential part of herself, but staying within the Wizardkind meant that she would always been a stranger there in some form as well.

Abruptly Umbra left, rolling back towards the moon, the air losing its unbearable frigidity in its wake.

“Hermione!”

A familiar gravely baritone rattled through the night, devoid of its customary calm. A firm hand gripped one of her upper arms pulling her to her feet. When had she fallen down? She couldn’t remember. Her wand was pressed into her gloveless hand.

“Did you cast it out?” she asked, surprised at how frenetic she sounded.

“No. I attempted to but Legilimency would not penetrate its mind, if that is what Umbra has indeed.”

“Pain,” she muttered then cleared her throat. “I think I accidentally managed to make it experience my anguish and it repelled it.”

He released her arm and turned to stare at the Umbra vanishing into the moon speckled distance. “It can be hurt,” he concluded, his voice quiet. “If it can be hurt, it can be defeated.”

“Speaking of which,” she said and cast a _Lumos Maxima_ pointing her wand at the graveyard.

A knotting mass of skeletal beings were advancing towards them while many more were crawling from the upturned graves. Their white, dead eyes reminded Hermione of those of the Umbra.

“Incedio,” she cried out and set an Inferius that was closest to them on fire.

“No,” Severus said. “This spell generates too small of a flame.”

They retreated carefully, Hermione’s eyes glued to the encroaching Inferi that had them pinned against the ruins. “Bluebell flames are not real fire so they won’t affect them. I suppose _Lacarnum Inflamari_ is out of the question, too.”

“Do they seem clothed to you?”

“What about Fiendfyre?” she asked reluctantly. She knew how to cast it but seriously doubted her ability to do so safely.

“Fiendfyre can only be controlled to the point that the caster does not immolate himself but not beyond. You would not survive my use of it and I may not be able to prevent it from reducing half the island to ashes.” He strode to her quickly and pulled her flush against his body with one arm wrapped tightly around her middle.

“Wait,” she yelled. “We cannot just leave them here.”

“We aren’t! However, what I am about to do is not much wiser.” He met her eyes, his gaze stony, their warm breaths mingling together in such close proximity. “Whatever happens, do not let go.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, clinging to him securely, then nodded. They were up and into the air in a split second. His wand whirled through the air.

“Procella ignifera,” he shouted as he lifted them off the ground.

A plume of red and golden fire erupted from the tip of his wand and stretched rapidly into a ring that rolled around the swirling mass of Inferi as his wand waltzed through the air describing a movement much like that of a launching lasso. The fire was close enough for her to feel its heat on her face. Holding her chin high as she tried to avoid getting her cheek singed, she lifted her wand past his shoulder as she sought to imitate the movement she had just seen him make.

A fresh rope of crimson and gold fire sprang from her own wand completing the circle Severus was attempting to describe around the Inferi. He rolled them around, yielding the flames like whip in order to carve a path through the Inferi until he let the fire collapse somewhere in the middle of the tangle of reanimated dead bodies.

“Partis Temporus,” he said before landing them on a bit of scorched earth surrounded by charred carcasses of Inferi.

There were still too many of them intact, however, with only their joined firestorms preventing them from leaving the graveyard. It would not suffice to burn them all, though.

“Do not lower your wand,” he said tightly. He whirled in place, his coat fanning around him, as dark as Umbra against the bright light of the flames. “Protego Diabolica.”

The black fire swirled in a circle around them. An Inferius tried touching it and though it didn’t burn its gaunt hand off, it did repel it. Hermione gritted her teeth, only the rush of adrenaline aiding her maintain the lasso of the firestorm around the cemetery. She clenched her teeth together, wishing for the Occlumency walls Umbra had destroyed in order to guard her mind from her own thoughts.

_He is trying to prevent a thousand or so Inferi from mauling unsuspecting Muggles_ , she told herself. _You will not judge him for casting a dark spell… even if it is one most often associated with Gellert Grindelwald._

From the corner of one eye, she saw him lift his arms, his wand dancing through the air with an unmistakable elegance. The black fire rose until it formed tall, swirling walls pulsing around the two of them like a living heart. Normally this unnatural fire burnt enemies and shielded allies, and though its magic did not work on the Inferi, it still kept them at a distance. As Severus pushed the blue-tinted flames towards the Inferi with a forward aimed twirl of his wand, she comprehended his plan without a single word passing between them. She repeated the motion that unleashed the firestorm in slowly narrowing circles, pulling the fiery ropes tighter and tighter around the Inferi. They crowded around the shape described by the Protego Diabolica spell but the black fire kept them at bay.

Soon the Inferi had nowhere to go and the climbed and crawled all over each other. The ropes of the firestorm reached them and began to incinerate the wretched creatures in an unevenly approaching wave. Hermione’s arms started to ache but she kept at it, tightening and tightening the lasso of crimson and gold, while Severus expanded the circle of the black fire, trapping the Inferi in an increasingly reduced space, while the living flames consumed them.

By the time it was over and Hermione let the firestorm collapse into nothingness, the arm of her wand hand burnt with the exertion, breath stuttering out of her throat and nose in laboured pants, as she shook and felt shaken at the same time. Her knees barely supported her but she steeled herself against the sensation of being physically and magically drained. She turned just in time to see Severus lower his hands and wand until the black fire died in embers around them. For a moment nothing but silence reigned as they stood looking at each amid a field of ashes and the disturbed graves of hunger victims. The Blood Moon hovered over the carnage, cold, dark pink and oblivious.

Hermione staggered towards her husband. “Are you all right?”

Even in the dark she could see his eyes blazing. His right arm came to wound itself around her waist, as he pulled her against the compact, hard form of his body, his lips descending upon hers to kiss her with a kind of desperate passion. The fire that ignited between them could have easily scorched away two thousand Inferi. Her senses reeling, she wondered how she could have ever thought him cold.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no canonical incantation for the firestorm spell hence I opted for the Latin Procella ignifera, which means "fire-bearing storm".


	24. A Walk on the Slytherin Side

Severus apparated them to a patch of muddy country road. Something creaked ominously nearby. The giant Blood Moon that had loomed Severus and Hermione’s battle with Umbra had absconded behind a dark curtain of clouds. Hermione cast a Lumos and aimed her lit wand to the general direction of the sound rattling above their heads. She saw what looked like a half-ruined, L-shaped country house with boarded windows and peeling paint that revealed time-worn red brick, and a rusty old firm proclaiming the place to the _Unlucky Charms_ Inn.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Still in County Meath,” he said then grasped her right hand in his larger one, giving it a firm squeeze. “Keep your eyes downcast and let me speak,” he ordered tersely as he pulled her along.

Hermione had to be careful not to slip on the patches of ice she soon discovered mixed into the mud. Still she nodded as he pulled them through a heavy wood door and into a narrow room with slanted ceiling and poor lighting. A few candles floated in the air and there was a fire lit in the hearth in the corner. The floor was lined with several long tables surrounded by backless benches. Four figures were hunched over steamy bowls, hoods pulled over their heads. From their silhouettes, Hermione guessed they were not all human.

Severus inclined his head forward, letting his long, black hair fall like a curtain over his face. Hermione raised her free hand to pull her woollen hat almost all the way over her eyes, keeping her eyes on the mud caked oak floor as instructed, while Severus dragged her to a front desk made out of a tree trunk that had been split in half, a part of it still bearing the bark. Out of the corner of one eye, she noted that the woman standing behind it looked like a stereotypical witch: she was old, her angular face marked by deep lines, with beady eyes and a sharp nose, the few strands of hair escaping from her black, pointed hat snow white.

“We would like a room,” Severus said in his calm, bored monotone.

“Of course,” she replied in a heavy Irish brogue and with a smirk that showed inside her toothless mouth. “Of course.”

Hermione became acutely aware of how they looked: an older man pulling a young girl in a visibly disreputable establishment such as this. Her heart began to beat faster. She should have been repulsed by the mere notion of him bringing her in a place such as this. This was a notch lower than anything on Knockturn Alley. But Hermione felt no aversion, instead a sense of wickedness warmed her blood that still thrummed with the mad dash of adrenaline caused by her most recent brush with death. They could have been torn to bits by Inferi. Her mind could have been unhinged by Umbra. Yet here they both were, alive and well, the electric tension that had sparked their post-conflict kiss still strumming between them, making her skin feel too tight, her breath stutter and her pulse roar in her ears. She was fairly certain there were goosebumps blossoming all over her body.

Severus lead her up a short staircase with thin, slippery steps and then through one of the doors littering the crooked upstairs corridor. He slammed and bolted the door then pressed Hermione against it, his hands wasting no time in pulling off her hat and jacket. His breathing was so irregular he was all but panting but it was his eyes had captured Hermione’s attention. Those familiar black, bottomless tunnels were ablaze with a hungering fire, his overall expression feral. He looked like a predator who had cornered his prey and was not about to devour it whole. And it was all for her. When he kissed her and made it carnal and filthy, one of his hands gripping and pulling on her plait almost to the point of pain, her reason fled. She wanted nothing more than to be lost to the madness with him.

A while later, he lay on his back on his cloak spread in front of the fire burning in the grate, his knuckles trailing lazily down her naked back as she sat up. She smiled a little, her mind clear now that her body was sated. She used her wand to stoke the flames a bit.

“It’s not chocolate but endorphins that help after an encounter with Dementors,” she remarked.

He chuckled, the sound sinfully rich just like the finest of chocolates. “Chocolate is easier to explain to underage students.”

She lay back down and rested her head on his shoulder, her lips stroking briefly his pale skin indented by angry red half moons left behind by her short nails. “I suppose,” she said. “Besides, nobody kissed at Hogwarts on your watch… not if you could help it. Let alone did anything else. You almost left the entire school without house points after the Yule Ball.”

His velvety chuckle deepened at that and if Hermione hadn’t known better, she could have sworn that for one or two seconds he had been laughing. She had never heard him laugh before, not even smile wide enough for him to show any teeth. She rose on an elbow to look him. His face was lax nearly to the point of relaxation and his skin was smoothed out and even glowing slightly in the warmly golden firelight. He looked younger… no, he looked his actual age. He wasn’t even forty yet. Suddenly the way the innkeeper had looked at them no longer seemed funny or inciting but turned rather infuriating. They were both adults. If Severus wanted to bring a woman half his age to bed or if she wanted to be with someone almost twenty years or a century her senior, then it was nobody’s business but their own.

“Do you want some dinner?” he asked all of the sudden in a reversal of their usual roles in which she was the one who always insisted he ate.

She was about to refuse, not wanting him to have any more interaction with the inn staff, when she realised she was actually famished. They had put their clothes back on and he had spelled the dust and grime off his cloak by the time the inn keeper came in with skirts and kidneys, soda bread and butter, stout and chocolate flapjacks. They were sitting at the table, looking innocent enough, though Hermione had pulled her chair closer to that of Severus, let her plait untidy and forwent her bra. When the innkeeper came in, she stared at the woman haughtily almost daring her to comment. The other witch said nothing, though, her sardonic gaze doing all the talking but it wasn’t enough to give Hermione the excuse she was looking for.

They ate in silence, Hermione practically inhaling her food, as she struggled to keep her wayward thoughts at bay. There were disturbing conclusions about Umbra to be drawn, the world’s reaction to the change in her and Severus’ relationship to ponder and the notion that she returned to work in the morning to be taken into account. For now, however, she was loathe to leave the warm, safe cocoon woven around them.

Severus used his wand to clutter the dishes onto the tray they had been brought in and then sent them to the floor outside the door. She sauntered over to where he sat and climbed onto his lap. She pulled his shirt over his head and pressed her closed mouth the the tangled knot of scars Nagini had left behind, while her hand busied themselves smoothing over the memories of torn skin on his shoulders. Her heart was racing. How many battles had he been in since before she was born? How much had he had to endure not just from enemies but from the very people who should have cared for him? What Bellatrix had done to her made a certain amount of sense; they had been at war and Bellatrix had been a foe fostering a fanatical hatred for everything Hermione was and represented. But Severus had been hurt by his father, by his school mates, by Voldemort when he was supposed to be on his side.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice low and gruff, fraught with uncertainty as her lips trailed delicately to a what looked suspiciously like an long, overgrown burn mark.

“Kissing you,” she replied absently, though she realised he could probably guess this wasn’t sexual. He was very still and stiff against her.

One his large hand made its way into her hair. “You don’t have to….”

“I want to,” she replied, stroking her way down his forearm until she reached the vestige of his Dark Mark.

He yanked his arm way when the pads of her fingers padded gently across it. “Don’t….”

Only then did she chance a look at his face. He looked to be in actual physical pain.

“Am I hurting you?” she asked nervously.

His lips pursed together. He seemed even paler than usual, all his previous relaxation having drained from him. He huffed indignantly, his hand tightening in her hair, as he tipped her face so he could kiss her, his lips urgent and devouring against hers. He was trying to distract her, she could tell. Tension practically vibrate off him. Still she pressed her palm against some of the scars criss-crossing his abdomen.

“Slowly,” she said as his teeth scraped impatiently over her pulse point. “What’s the rush?”

He didn’t answer, instead he lifted and deposited her on the table that creaked plaintively under her weight. His expression had darkened and his eyes were heavy lidded. He leaned over her and took her mouth again. A thousand questions were swarming in her head. Had anyone ever fought with him instead of being just him alone on potentially fatal missions? Had anyone asked him if he was all right in the aftermath of a battle? Had he ever been able to feel that someone was on his side? Had he ever been met with anything other than scorn and mistrust from the very people he was fighting for? She guessed the answer was no on all accounts. Then again she couldn’t think for long, as he swept her away in a dizzying torrent of sensation.

# # #

Professor Borin gave Astoria a long-suffering look as her hand went up for the third time in the past hour. Astoria smiled genially at him, ignoring the warning look she received from Penny Parkinson sitting at her elbow.

“Sir,” Astoria began politely. “It says here that Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany, started the Second Muggle World War.” She thumped her index finger lightly on the corresponding page in her textbook.

“Yes,” Borin replied testily, pushing his golden wire glasses higher up his fleshy nose. “What of that is unclear to you, Miss Greengrass?”

“Mr. Hitler was just one man, Sir. I find it hard to believe he single-handedly started a war that spawned the entire muggle world. Surely there have been other causes or additional circumstances that made such a conflict happen.”

“Five points from Slytherin, Miss Greengrass,” Borin bellowed. “I would have expected that you and the rest of the house would understand how one man can fling an entire world into war… seeing as you have personal experience in such matters.”

There were sniggers from the Gryffindors sitting at the front. The Slytherins around her sent Astoria insistent looks. Travers glowered at her.

“No, Sir,” she replied calmly, her tone still one of politeness. “I do not understand. Whatever do you mean?”

“Detention, Miss Greengrass, with Mr. Filch… tonight!”

“For asking questions during class? For wishing to comprehend what we are supposed to be learning better? The entire Slytherin House has been compelled to retake Muggle Studies. I assume there has been a purpose for this aside from compiling our class load.”

Penny pulled on the sleeve of her robes but Astoria ignored her. She had woken up that morning in pain, her movements sluggish and difficult, and it made her feel reckless.

Borin’s beady, blue eyes fixed her with a kind of cold-hearted loathing. Astoria paused, a shiver racking through her. She understood what he thought he saw when he looked at her and the rest of her house. She lowered her own gaze, stamping on the instinct to scream atop of her lungs that that wasn’t her, that she didn’t hate him for him for who his parents were. She just despised him as a teacher. Borin was muggle-born, though Astoria suspected she had never set so much as a foot outside the wizarding world for the sixty-four years he had spent straddling a desk at the Ministry. Now he seemed to fancy retirement in a castle in the Scottish countryside while doing the bare minimum in class.

“Twenty additional points shall be taken from Slytherin,” Borin thundered, his bony cheeks staining with crimson. “Is there anything else you would like to add, Miss Greengrass?”

He spat her name as though it were an insult. Astoria slumped in her seat, wondering if he had been at her father’s trial, and heard the same horrors that had turned her world upside down, just like she had.

When the class was finally over, the Slytherins stayed behind as they usually did these days.

Talkalot turned to Astoria with a frown. “It’s official,” he hissed. “Our house has the least amount of points in half a century. Thanks to you, we are tied with Hufflepuff.”

“We are not learning anything in this class,” she groused.

Parkinson shrugged. “So what? Why can’t you slumber on like the rest of us? Borin isn’t worse than Binns.”

“He isn’t better, either,” Astoria grumbled. “Only that any pure-blood has already been taught the basics on the history of magic at home, before we even get our acceptance letter. It’s Muggles that we don’t know not nearly enough about.” She paused as her classmates protested that they knew as much as they needed. “We could form a book club,” Astoria advanced once the voices around her died out. “A muggle book club. We would read a new book every week and meet to discuss it.”

“You are bang out of order,” Travers muttered. “We cannot form an association of any kind any more than you can make Borin answer your daft questions.”

“Why not? Student organizations are permitted by the rules.”

Leilani Khan laughed at that. “Do you think our Gryffindor Headmistress and the Deputy Headmistress who also happens to be Head of Gryffindor House would allow _us_ to form a student organization? It doesn’t matter what you mean to call it. They’ll still think it’s actually intended to be the _The Dark Lords and Ladies of Tomorrow_.”

“We shall keep it a secret then,” Astoria persisted. “We will only let the younger students of our House know.”

“We’re not Gryffindors,” Travers piped in. “If we get caught, we will be expelled and Hogwarts might not be much these days but I’d still rather be here than in the forty empty rooms of my family mansion with the ghosts, the portraits and three house elves constantly asking what they could do for me.”

“You could give them clothes,” Astoria offered.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? Every time they would start with the whining and the moaning about how they have been with my family for generations and how they would punish themselves just to please me. It’s enough to drive a bloke mad. I have no family out of Azkaban, Astoria, so I intend to make the most of the few months I have left here.”

“This is making the most of the time we have left at Hogwarts,” she pointed out patiently.

“Pansy is going to kill me, if I get expelled,” Penny interjected.

“We shan’t get caught,” Astoria stressed. “We are Slytherins. We cheat at quidditch all the time. When was the last time we were found out?”

“Just last month,” Fawley muttered.

“Well, you are careless,” Talkalot shot back. “Where are we going to find muggle books, anyway?”

Astoria smiled. “Muggles employ bookshops, too.” She stood and began arranging her school items neatly into her satchel. “We should go. We don’t want to be late for Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

Groans erupted around her. Madam Ennui, a reputable French Belgian scholar the Headmistress prided herself on managing to snag, was trying but her genuine efforts could not make up for her lack of practical experience. Surely she had written several well-received treatises on the moral and philosophical implications of the use of curses and hexes but none of her academical expertise lent itself to teaching. Still she made fumbling attempts at having the students duel, which usually ended bad for Slytherins. If they gave as good as they got, the other students reported their uncanny interest in Dark Magic that was sure to lead them down the same path as the many Death Eaters coming from their house. If they demurred, their opponents would take merciless advantage of it.

When the bell rang, they crowded at the back of the class waiting for Ennui—a tall woman on the plump side, with shortly cropped, gold and silver hair and bright, hazel eyes—to waltz in a sweep of her colourful, perfectly tailored robes. While Astoria was not fond of her, she, like many other Slytherin girls, admired the woman’s impeccable sense of style. Much like Hagrid, Ennui meant well, she was just wrong for her post.

Today’s topic was Dementors and things devolved rapidly.

“Is it true dark wizards cannot produce a patronus charm?” someone at one of the tables occupied by Gryffindors said.

“It’s true, yes,” Ennui replied in her melodic, strongly accented voice. She was unfamiliar with the house dynamics at Hogwarts and often failed to navigate them properly. “You must understand this is not the only consideration about the patronus charm. Generally speaking, it’s very difficult to produce, especially a full-bodied one.”

Astoria’s hand shot up in the air. Penny leaned towards her quickly. “I am begging you, leave us some points to finish the term with.”

Astoria shot her a brief glare but said nothing.

“Yes, Mademoiselle Greengrass?” Ennui said in her usual, friendly manner. “You have a question.”

“I don’t have a question,” Astoria replied with a beatific smile. “I can produce a corporeal patronus.”

Ennui’s thin, pale eyebrows shot up, surprise registering on her round, beautiful face that showed her to be about ten years younger than she actually was. “Pardon?” she said, her astonishment making her pronounce the word in the French rather than the English manner.

Every pair of eyes not belonging to a Slytherin turned on Astoria, some with curiosity, others with disbelief and quite a few with malice. Astoria pulled out her wand and closed her eyes, willing herself away from the stuffy classroom, then her hand lifted and whirled through the air.

“Expecto patronum,” she called out.

When she opened her eyes again, the grass snake that was her patronus was slithering through the air like a delicate silvery mist. Elation shot through her. She was still unsure with the charm and the snake didn’t always emerge fully formed.

Professor Ennui gasped. “Very impressive. Ten points to Slytherin, Mademoiselle Greengrass. How did you learn such a complex charm?”

“The young man courting me taught me,” Astoria said lowering her wand as the cobra broke itself into tiny sparks against one of the windows. Triumph warmed her chest at the shocked gasps filling the room. Everyone knew of the swirling rumours linking her to Draco Malfoy. “Our former Head of House taught him,” she added gleefully. “You all remember Professor Snape, do you not?”

A heavy silence wafted over the place. Astoria kept her grin in place. Even from a distance Snape inspired fear.

“My predecessor?” Ennui asked with genuine interest and politely waiting for Astoria to confirm. “He certainly made sure you are well prepared for a Dementor attack.”

“Dementors won’t attack her,” somebody from Ravenclaw said. “They are allied with Death Eaters.”

Ennui stared at Astoria in confusion. “Miss Greengrass is too young to have been a Death Eaters.”

“Her parents aren’t,” several voices clamoured.

“Neither is the boyfriend she claims taught her to conjure a patronus,” someone added.

“Or Professor Snape… he was a Death Eater, too.”

“Professor Snape is a hero,” Talkalot shouted. “He saved you lot from Voldemort.”

“Harry Potter defeated Voldemort,” resounded the furiously vociferous protests from all over the classroom.

“Yeah… it was the Chosen One and his allies in all houses but Slytherin….”

“Snape just slithered his way in at the last moment claiming he was on our side all along to save his hide.”

“He was a creep… a bully… obsessed with Potter’s Mum… a married woman…. He tormented poor Harry for years just because she turned him down.”

Astoria sank back down, overcome by a sudden feeling of emptiness and defeat. At her side, Penny’s wand shot up. “I’m hexing each and every one of them. It will be worth the detention!”

Astoria gripped the wrist of her wand hand to stop her. “This is not the Slytherin way.”

Travers, who was captain of their quidditch team, leaned back. “Next match… none of them stays on their brooms. I don’t care if they expel me.”

Fawley turned to Astoria too. “You know what? Let’s have that stupid club of yours.”

# # #

Astoria quietly slipped from the group of seventh and sixth year students visiting Hogsmeade under the supervision of Professor Aurora Sinistra, the new Head of Gryffindor House, now that Mcgonagall had become Headmistress. It wasn’t that Draco and she could not meet in public like normal people but they didn’t want to appear to be flaunting their relationship in front of his parents or give more fodder to those gossiping about them. As she doubled back towards the castle and slipped into the Forbidden Forest, a sharp twist of pain bloomed around her middle. She paused leaning against the tee trunk. Her head whirled as the pain mounted to her chest. She closed her eyes and started counting in her mind, waiting for the sudden weakness and nausea to pass. She had taken her potions in the morning. This was just momentary, it would pass.

When she opened her eyes again, it took the better part of a minute for her vision to clear. Reality wavered around her and she began to slide to the ground. She dug her shoes into the ground, gritting her teeth, then made herself pull back up slowly, the air shocking cool against her heated skin. Then the malaise started to wane and her strength returned. She gulped on air hungrily. Once, twice, three times. It was gone as if it had never happened. She pressed a hand to her temple and waited for a few seconds lest it decided to make a brisk return. When it didn’t, she followed the path deeper into the woods.

Draco leaned casually against a giant oak trunk, wrapped in resplendent, silver tinged black robes, a few strands of hair falling in his eyes, a familiar smirk stretching his lips.

“I hope you know that you have gone completely around the bend,” he said. His pale grey eyes were twinkling with mischief.

Astoria smiled, feeling her cheeks grow warm as she drank in the sight of him. “Hello, Draco. It is lovely to see you. How am I? Why, how very gallant of you to ask. I am fine, thank you, how about yourself?”

His grin showed a flash of teeth as he stepped towards her. “I came here with a sack of muggle books. I believe that should make up for any imaged impoliteness on my part.” His arm slipped around her waist and he pulled her a little closer. “Hello, Astoria. I have missed you.” His lips brushed the tip of her nose delicately before he kissed her on the lips.

She returned the kiss for a few moments before breaking apart with a fresh smile. “Now that is a proper welcome.” She grasped the string of the black, velvet pouch he had been carrying. “Have you read any of these?”

“Of course not,” he puffed indignantly.

Astoria rummaged through the bag briefly before coming up with a copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ that had been huddled together with the other reducted volumes. “I would have thought you would want to know your competition,” she said slyly as she held up the book. “Even you are not match for Mr. Darcy, Draco.”

“Who is Mr. Darcy?” he asked, his voice inflamed with suspicion.

“Read the book,” she advised thrusting the proffered tome at him.

“I must be the first in my family to ever crack open a muggle book.”

“Well, you have always prided yourself on your uniqueness, Draco. Now, have you delivered an invitation to your family Yule party to Professor and Madam Snape?”

“What if I haven’t? They won’t come, Astoria.”

She looked at him through the corner of her eyes from where she was crouched on the moss-covered forest floor bent over the satchel he had brought her. “Still it would behove you to be polite.”

“What are you plotting, Astoria?”

“Who says I am plotting?”

His lips curved into a devious smile. “Anyone who has ever met you.”

“Was this expensive?” she asked pulling out an edition of _They Art of War_ with soft, shiny covers.

“How would I know what Muggles think of as expensive?” he asked testily, rolling his shoulders in a shrug as he did.

“Can’t you find out?” she pressed.

“What is this about, Astoria?”

She straightened herself out with a grin. “It’s a surprise.” She leaned over to him and kissed him sweetly on the lips. “Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” he said once they broke apart. “You’re in Slytherin.”

She kissed him again. “Good answer, Mr. Malfoy.”

# # #

Astoria hastened back to the castle, quietly cursing her own stupidity. It was almost sundown. Even with the _Reducto_ charm, the bag of books felt heavy. Then again she almost always lost track of time when she was with Draco. They had walked through the woods for a bit talking about books, her mother driving both him and his father mental with her redecorating of Malfoy Manor, and a few carefully curated school subjects. She cast apprehensive glances around the Hogwarts grounds but so far she appeared to be alone, which was the whole problem to begin with. Slytherins never went anywhere alone these days. Her hand clutched her wand tighter.

She paused to take a breath. Her teeth gnashed together of their own accord. There was a faint iron tang on her tongue. She pressed a hand to her lips and it came back stained with blood. She spat a mouthful of it and placed her burden on the ground by her feet. Fat, white flakes of snow began to flutter through the icy air.

“Well, well, if it’s not the patronus conjuring Death Eater….”

_No, not now_ , she thought and whirled around. If she struck first, there would be detention for the rest of the year or worse because they could claim she had attacked them. There were four of them: two Gryffindors, a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff.

“She’s returning to the castle,” the Hufflepuff, a petite fifth year girl with a friendly face, said. “Like us. Let’s just go!”

Astoria’s hand was clammy on her wand, as she measured her options. She could run but doubted she would get far. She could scream but they were alone and unless a professor heard, the attention she would attract would likely only increase their numbers.

“Only she’s nothing like us,” Abercrombie, one of the the Gryffindors, jeered. “Her father is a murderer, rotting in Azkaban where she belongs as well, and her mother died attacking Hogwarts. What do you think her sweet, sweet parents would have done to us if Voldemort had won?”

“Expelliarmus,” somebody cried out just as Abercrombie was finishing his tirade.

Astoria’s legs cut from under her just as her wand flew from her hand, panic worsening her malaise. She grasped the string of the book bag, whispering a transfiguration spell under her breath, hoping it took even without her wand. Voices erupted all around her.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. You heard the spell.”

“Let’s just go!”

“We can’t leave her here like this.”

_Leave me here,_ Astoria pleaded silently. _I shall drag myself to the dungeons somehow._

Somebody was touching her face but in the ashen light of the twilight and with her vision foggy once more, she couldn’t see who it was. “Astoria… are you…?”

She turned her head and bit the hand pressed to her cheek.

“Aw! You, bitch… I was trying to help you….”

Astoria dragged herself to her knees, the world still whirling dangerously around her. “Don’t help me,” she shouted. “Leave me alone…. Just leave me alone!”

“Come on, let’s go. She’s mad and vicious… like her parents… like the whole lot of them.”

Once the sounds of the departing foot steps grew more and more muted, she groped for her wand and clutching it to her chest, she pulled herself back to her feet. Grasping the string of the bag that thankfully lay untouched on the ground, she started back on her way to the reconstructed castle her parents and their friends had besieged a year and a half ago. She only stopped when she reached the grey marble obelisk that shot towards the sky. It was the sole reminder of the devastation wrought upon the place; even the bridge had been rebuilt.

_IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN_

The letters glowed a warm orange at the base of the structure, never going out just like the tall magic aflame glimmering at the top. The snowflakes were cold as they melted against the hot tears streaming down her face.

“How could you?” she asked the descending night, her mother’s warm, loving face floating from memory. “How could you?!”

The night air had no answers to give.

TBC


	25. Reality Bites

_ Severus… please…. _

Charity Burbage’s bloodied and battered face shifted to the pleading one of Dumbledore and then back again. Charity had been kind to him, friendly almost, instead of the respect from a distance he was used to receiv ing from his colleagues. He hadn’t been complaining, though. Respect was infinitely better than derision. But Charity had been different. She hadn’t shied away from him, willingly engaging him in conversation in the staff room  and those  discussions  often went beyond  what was strictly necessary  for them to do their jobs. There hadn’t been any disgust or anger in her eyes when looking at him, not once. Her congratulations when Slytherin won a game of quidditch or were ahead on house points had always sounded earnest, her smile wide and sincere, instead of the tight-lipped kudos he usually received. He could have almost imagined them friends and the confirmation had come as Voldemort had been levitating her above a table, moments before  murdering her for the crime of  not  believing witches and wizards  to be  superior  to  Muggles . It had come as she had plead with him for help, while he had been forced to sit, stone-faced, and watch as she had been tormented and killed, for if he intervened, she would have died,  regardless, together with him, and the entire living nightmare he had endured as a triple agent would have been for naught. Dumbledore’s death would have been for nothing. 

_ Severus… please…. _

_ You promised…. _

_ Avada kedavra…. _

No! No! No! 

The voices at his trial twisted around him, coiling like the hissed whisperers of a thousand unseen snakes. And wasn’t that ironic?

_ Murderer…! Death Eater…! Traitor…! Justice for Dumbledore! _

Yes, he deserved to be punished. He had killed  _him_ . Everyone who had been even remotely kind to him, he had destroyed. He had abandoned his mother to his father’s tender mercy, flying off to his dream of Hogwarts. He had insulted Lily beyond repair. He had joined Voldemort and betrayed Lily yet again, causing her death. He had watched people… Charity Burbage, naive, warm-hearted Charity Burbage who treated even the likes of him like a human being. He had let i t happen. He had allowed students to be tortured under his watch,  while he had been Headmaster. Him, Headmaster at Hogwarts, in Dumbledore’s stead, what a joke!  What a cruel, twisted joke!

… _you looked him the eye… a man who trusted you… and killed him… killed him…._

No, what were those fools doing it? He was guilty! He should have been dead. He deserved the Dementors’ Kiss and worse. He was guilty! Why h ad they  let him go? 

“Severus… Severus… please…. It’s okay…. You’re okay…. You’re with me. You’re safe.”

The voice was familiar and filled with concern and affection w hile the hands that were running over him were steady and gentle, clearly not aiming to hurt.  They were small, soft and warm, better than anything he had ever felt b efore , far, far better than he deserved. 

“It’s just a nightmare,” she continued in that small, worried voice. “You’re safe now.” 

T here were lips on his brow and they felt even better than the hands, silky and oh, so delicate. If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up. Ever! He wished to remain in this warm bauble where somebody sounded genuinely concerned for him. Gradually his senses returned and he remembered where he was. He pried his eyes open and was met with Hermione’s distressed gaze. She gave him a wan smile. 

“You had a nightmare,” she said unnecessarily then lowered her eyes, hesitating briefly before adding: “You kept calling out Dumbledore’s name.” 

H e jerked upwards, careful to look away from her,  then slid out of bed. If he had been dreaming, it meant he had fallen asleep. Truly, deeply asleep. Normally after they had sex, he either stayed awake for a while before slipping away, or fell into an all too short, light dose. Tonight would be the first time he had actually slept in her arms. There was an odd, hollow sensation in the middle of his chest that combined with the residual horror of the dream.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said quietly, as he began picking up his clothes piece by piece from the floor, straightening them up with wordless spells, and then putting them on. “He made you… he asked you to. He was dying anyway. He would have been dead by the end of the year.”

Severus finished buttoning up his shirt and he scrutinised the shadowy  room for where his frock coat had ended up. “I still killed him. Ask your friend, Potter, if you don’t believe me.” He located his coat tossed under the table and bent to retrieve it.

“I don’t have to ask anyone anything,” she replied. “I saw how it happened in your memory, remember? I know how much anguish it causes you… how guilty you feel.”

He said nothing at that, merely s hrugging into his coat.

“He had no right,” she soldiered on, anger quivering in his voice.

He whirled on her, his fingers trembling over the buttons of his coat. “ I didn’t have to agree.”

“You tried to say no,” she began. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears. “He did ask too much of you,” she echoed his own words. “He put too much on your shoulders. And whenever you wanted to refuse the next ignoble mission, he would dangle the memory of Lily in front of you to get you to do it. He exploited you, your love for her and your guilt.” One tear did fall, running down her left cheek. “I wish I still had the time-turner so I could go back and punch him in the face for what he did to you… for Harry… for everything.” 

Anger started to bubble beneath the surface of his mind. “He had every right,” he said, keeping his voice  low yet threatening.  Agitation gripped him and he was powerless to resist.  “He was the commander of an army at war. Besides, I had promised to give him anything as long as he kept Lily and her family safe.”

“Harry’s parents were part of the Order, they were on his side,” she shouted, her eyes burning with fury, tears falling in earnest now. “It was his job to keep them safe. Don’t you see how much worse this makes everything? He blackmailed you with the safety of his own people. He used them as a bargaining chip! It could have been anyone, me, Harry, Ron. It was Harry! And he had the gal to say you were the one who disgusted him.” 

H e sneered moving closer to the bed, where she sat in the middle of it, a threadbare, yellowing sheet wrapped around her body. “So the true motif emerges. You are not angry on my behalf.  Y ou are furious because you believe that Dumbledore would have leveraged your life and that of your friends to gain a spy, if given half a chance.”

She bristled. “I don’t believe anything. I know he would have. Don’t you see? We worshipped him… we trusted him. He would have leapt into fire if only he commanded it.”

H e sat down on the edge of the bed, giving her a small, wry smile. “You were not the only one s .”

She smiled back, just as bitterly. “Harry loved him like a father….  He  still does, I think. He doesn’t talk much about him these days. I think he doesn’t know how to feel about what he saw in your memories… about the whole sending him to die by Voldemort’s hand like a pig to the slaughter. I guess it never occurred to me that you… you too.”

He scowled. “Me too? Me too… what?” 

She hesitated, drawing her lower lip into her mouth to chew on it. “ I guess…. I just mean… you cared for him, too.”

He turned his gaze towards the dying flames in the grate. She didn’t have to vocalize it. He knew all too well what she meant. “He was my friend… or so I believed,” he admitted. “He was the only one who knew….”

One of her hands patted at his own on the blanket awkwardly before her fingers curled firmly around his. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Not to feel like you were a pawn in a giant game of wizarding chess?  As if we were expandable… all of us.”

The fury that heated his blood had a an entirely different cause. He turned his head to meet her eyes once more. “You were not expandable, none of you, not even P otter .”

Her eyes filled with tears anew. “You weren’t expandable, either,” she said s harply . “And you deserve to be known… a nd not just by Dumbledore.  I know you think everybody is being nice to you out of obligation for what you did during the war but many of us are honestly sorry for how we misjudged and treated you.  We’ re making a real effort to show you how much we admire you. Harry thinks  the world of you . Even in the Ministry, not everyone believes as Kingsley does. I know for a fact everyone in the Weasley family would be incensed by it. M ind you , Mr. and Mrs. Weasley always respected you lots.  W hen we were in school, Molly would not let Harry and Ron call you anything other than  _Professor_ Snape.” 

H is fingers curled tighter around her hand before he could realise what he was doing.  Their gazes met and he was tempted by the promise of her mind. He frowned. What was with him? If he didn’t want her body, he lusted after her mind, and most of the time, he desired to have both. He yanked  her towards him. She tangled in the sheets and fell against his shoulder, steadying herself with her free hand gripping onto the material of his coat. 

“You don’t have to stay at that awful Prince Manor… unless you really want to, of course. I just mean… you could live among us. Minerva means it when she says she wants you back at Hogwarts, you know, or if you don’t want to return there, you could always open an apothecary or make potions for St. Mungo’s. I’m sure yours are better than anyone else’s. Or you could do research… and publish the Half-Blood Prince’s book. Even Harry was an exceptional brewer following your corrections.”

“You are incapable of shutting up, aren’t you?” he observed even as he was smiling despite himself.

“You weren’t complaining when I was screaming earlier,” she retorted and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Honestly, Severus, you have options. You don’t have to close yourself from the world any more. We are not all out to get you.”

“No, not all,” he whispered, unable to keep all of his resentment out of his voice. Even with his contribution to the war known, he was still under suspicion, still forced to explain himself. “I suppose those options you are speaking of will dwindle after I would have spent a few months in Azkaban.”

All colour drained from her face as she sat back, studying him nervously. “What are you talking about?”

“You are expected back at the Ministry in a manner of hours,” he explained with a patience he did not truly feel. “You will go and alert Kingsley to what happened earlier tonight, I am certain. After all, he can hardly ignore the word of a member of the Golden Trio, even if you do not have a single scrap of evidence to back up your claims. When you do, you shall have to explain how one witch and one wizard alone managed to not only fight off but also set ablaze an entire horde of a thousand Inferi and more. You cannot keep my use of Protego Diabolica a secret in addition to the fact that your mind has been tempered with and the other slew of things you cannot explain, such as how you know Umbra is called Umbra or how I learnt where it would be during the Hunter’s Moon. Whatever else Dumbledore might have done, he also shielded you and your friends from the consequences your less than legitimate actions would have had under normal circumstances. Need I remind you that other members of the Order of the Phoenix were not so fortunate? There are no such shields in the real world, not for former Death Eaters.”

S he paled and he watched as realisation dawned in her eyes followed shortly by horror. Casting Protego Diabolica was illegal, though the penalty was not as stiff as for the Unforgivable Curses. Still it should land him two or three months in Azkaban  at the very least , unless, of course, the case could be made that his actions had been necessary. Then he could walk away free again.  However,  he couldn’t keep collecting trials for the use of Dark Magic. Sooner or later something would stick. Judging by the look on Hermione’s face, she had come to understand as much as well. Then there was the matter of the Malfoys and their possession o f the illegal Dark Arts book Draco had used to calculate t he date of Umbra’s next rising of Inferi.

“My mind hasn’t been tampered with,” she said at last. 

“Are you certain?” he inquired. “Think back.”

Her brows scrunched together as she mulled over his words, no doubt going back in her mind until she reached their discussions about removing her memory of what she had read in the history of the Transylvanian vampires. She went very still and he comprehend she had come across the blank space left in her mind by the lacking recollection. 

“What do you want me to do?” she asked. 

“I beg your pardon?”

“Tell me how you want us to proceed and I will do exactly as you say.”

Startled, he searched her face. There was only determination in her expression, her gaze steady as it fixed on him. He slipped into her mind briefly and with no resistance, and experienced the the truth of her words first hand. 

“I trust you, Severus.”

It was his turn to go very stil l, a t a sudden loss for words. He blinked and Occluded, sheltering himself from the wave of emotion grazing at him. He was raw for a few moments then the blessed calm of his walls helped him regain his equilibrium. For as long as he remembered, he had been forced to justify himself to those alongside whom he had fought, mistrusted and accepted in only grudgingly. Even back when he had still been loyal to Voldemort, the Dark Lord’s camp had been riddled with paranoia and petty intrigues, bouts of Cruciatus as common as water in a rainstorm, while their master set them on each other for his amusement during demented revels and raids or duels that sometimes escalated to the death. He had been as much as an odd duck among Death Eaters as anywhere else. He had belonged even less with the Order of Phoenix,  always doubted and suspected. The best he could have hoped  for from his allies had been quiet resentment. Nobody trusted him—aside from Dumbledore who had made him into a killer—and now Hermione.  Under Hermione’s clear, earnest gaze his impeccable and impenetrable Occlumency walls trembled as they had never done under the Dark Lord’s scrutiny. He retained control only through a monumental effort of will.

“You’ve been in this situation before with no security net,” she continued calmly. “I trust you to know what our best course of action is under the circumstances.” 

# # #

Astoria lay in bed staring at the canopy. She was shivering. The dungeons were always colder and damper than the rest of the castle but it wasn’t the wet chill that caused her shudders. It was quiet too, safe for Penny’s soft snoring. Her third room-mate, Mavis Volant, didn’t snore. She tried to fill her mind with thoughts of Draco but they only made her feel worse. Was it right what she was doing? She knew she had to tell him the truth but she could no bear the idea that he might stay with her out of obligation. He was determined to turn a new leaf and emerge from the pernicious doctrines instilled in him by his parents. It was one of the many things they had in common. Now more than ever he would not want to be the bloke who left a woman in her condition.

Everyone in Slytherin knew she was sickly and frail of constitution, that she fainted occasionally and spent a morning or two every few months vomiting in the bathroom. Draco knew as much too. Astoria ruthlessly used this to get out of difficult assignments or tight spots with her professors. It even worked with Mcgonagall. Nobody wanted to be harsh t o the beautiful young girl who seemed to be as fragile as p orcelain . Slughorn marked her up, too, which was a good thing, since Astoria was utterly mediocre in Potions. There had been one exception, however. 

_She w_ _as_ _coming from_ _Transfiguration_ _class with Penny early in her third year,_ _on a miserable, rainy October morning,_ _heading towards their dungeons for Potions_ _. She had been feeling a bit peaky upon waking_ _up_ _but she had perked_ _right_ _up after breakfast._ _She saw_ _Daphne and Pansy_ _chatting at the bottom of the stairs and she waved._ _Then reality had begun to drift away,_ _Astoria’s legs going funny all of the sudden. She blinked, befuddled by the sudden ringing in her ears. There was a hint of iron on her tongue and she felt like she had no more energy left to make it down the last few steps left. She heard_ _Daphne scream_ _or at least, she thought it was her sister._ _A moment later she realized her left side and back hurt and that she was staring upwards. She had fallen but how and when? She couldn’t recall._

_D_ _aphne’s face swam above her. “_ _Toria, what happened? Are you ill?”_

_It occurred to her that Daphne hadn’t called her Toria since she had been six years old._

“ _What is the meaning of this?” resounded a familiar cold drone from somewhere close._

_O_ _h now! Their Head of House! Astoria was completely mortified. What would he think of her finding her sprawled on the floor? He would believe she had been fighting like those hooligans in Gryffindor. She wasn’t good in Potions, she knew as much, but she had always made up for it with her impeccable behaviour. Slytherin_ _House_ _had never gotten into trouble on her account._ _She tried to struggle upwards, supported by Daphne and Pansy’s arms around her_ _but her limbs remained uncooperative. Daphne was babbling something not very coherent about Astoria missing a step and falling over as if their mother had raised a clutz and not given her any lessons in poise_ _and posture._

“ _Shut it, Daphne,” Astoria murmured, trying to turn her head to glare at her sister. All she wanted was_ _to_ _take the punishment that would be undoubtedly coming to her with as much dignity as she had left. She didn’t need Daphne to make it worse_ _f_ _or_ _her._

_To Astoria’s growing humiliation, Snape drew closer, an ominous crease between his eye-brows. His expression had gone from blank to foreboding. She was in big trouble, Astoria just knew it._ _Then he folded himself in half and lifted her in his arms as if she weighted nothing, balancing her head on an ample palm as if it were an all too breakable egg._

“ _Miss Penny Parkinson,” he snapped. “You will go to class now and will wait there for my return. Miss Pansy Parkinson, Miss Daphne Greengrass, you have a free period, do you not? You shall return to your room and be quiet. I shall take your sister to the hospital wing, Miss Greengrass, and when she is ready to see you, Madam Pompfrey will send for you.”_

“ _I would like to come with h_ _er_ _now,” Daphne began carefully. “If I may, Sir.”_

“ _You may not,” he jeered surly. “Now do as you were bid.”_

_H_ _e whirled around, still holding Astoria firmly in his arms, and began climbing the stairs. To her surprise, he didn’t take her to the hospital wing but to the Quad._ _He set her on her feet by the stone wall._

“ _You should be able to stand by now,” he said coolly._

_To Astoria’s mounting astonishment, she found that she could. He remained pressed to the wall by her side as if to be shielded from the rain rapping mercilessly against the fl_ _agstone pavement_ _of the Quad. The place was deserted and they had encountered nobody on their way,_ _either,_ _since classes had already started._

“ _You will have to go to the hospital wing eventually, of course, since Madam Pompfrey and I will have to agree on a potions regime for you._ _However, I thought you would like to write to your parents first._ _They would need to be appraised not only of your condition but of the steps taken to treat it._ _They might be in possession of vital information we lack.”_

_Astoria’s mortification evaporated, dread replacing it. Her extremities started to feel cold. She turned to him. “Professor… what is wrong with me?”_

_B_ _lack, pitiless eyes searched her face. “You do not know,” he said softly. “It must have skipped a generation or two so your parents thought themselves and by extension, you, safe.”_ _He paused, making a face as if forced to have swallowed something particularly g_ _hastly_ _. “How long have you had the symptoms, Miss Greengrass?”_

_She had a distinct feeling of_ _unreality._ _What was he talking about?“What…_ _symptoms…_ _Sir_ _?”_

“ _Dizziness, inexplicable pain that passes almost as quickly as it starts, fatigue, spitting of blood, dulled or muddled senses as if hit with a p_ _owerful version of the_ _confundus charm,” he recited impatiently._

_Astoria swallowed over a parched throat. She felt as if she was experiencing all those symptoms just now. “_ _I have been experiencing… small doses of them all since I have returned to school_ _this September_ _. I thought it was the change in atmosphere. Autumns are harsher here than in East Sussex.” His scoff interrupted her, reminding her to cease rambling and get back on track or risk a most severe reprimand. “I am ill, am I not?”_

_There was no expression on his smooth, sallow face, and his shrew, tunnel like eyes regarded her steadily, his gaze boring in_ _to_ _hers. “_ _You are not ill, Miss Greengrass,” he said bluntly. “You are dying.”_

“Astoria, Astoria… wake up.” Someone was clasping her shoulder with fingers that felt like talons against her sore flesh. “We are going to miss breakfast.”

S he blinked up at Penny. Odd how Astoria had been dying since before she had turned thirteen and yet it was her mother was in the grave.  Over the years she had grown to appreciate Snape’s brusque manner  on  that day.  Everyone who found out showered  her  in impotent sympathies and empty promises of a help they knew they would not be able to provide. 

“Sorry,” she told Penny. “I will get dressed right away.”

“If you are unwell, you can skip Potions this morning,” Penny said, sitting on the edge of her bed. “Slughorn won’t mind as long as he doesn’t have to deal with whatever ails you.”

Astoria smiled bitterly. She couldn’t even think of eating without her stomach roiling. “ I believe I’ll stay in today. I’ll go to the hospital wing later to obtain a note from Madam Pompfrey,” she said attempting to keep her tone light as if this was nothing, merely a way to get out of a class with their much disdained Head of House. 

S he slunk back onto the pillows as Penny returned to dressing, carefully adding layer upon layer and chirping merrily about this or that. Astoria was only half listening. She would indeed need to visit Madam Pompfrey today a s well as write to Professor Snape. Strengthening Solution was losing its effect on her and she required a  more powerful version .

# # #

Hermione entered the Atrium at the Ministry of Magic at a sedate pace, the draining night she had had weighed heavily on her. She was exhausted and showing it, for her eyes were red-rimmed and the skin beneath them looked bruised, her face pale. After Severus had flown her to her London flat, she had employed both magical and muggle means to cover up the worst of it but even a mix of make-up and spells could only do so much. Her hair had similarly resisted being forced into a plait. However, her muggle trousers suit was sharp and professional and that returned her a measure of control.

All concerns about how she looked and exhaustion flew out the window the moment she glimpsed the brick wide book on sale at the news stand along with the usual newspapers and magazines:  _Snape: Scoundrel and Saint—_ A Biography by Rita Skeeter. Her stomach fluttered uncomfortably and she was grateful she had been too busy to eat breakfast that morning.  Knowing Skeeter, the contents of t he book could be nothing short of horrible. Though she was already running late, she sprinted to the stand and bought the volume along with the Prophet and the Quibbler, which she purchased religiously out of loyalty to Luna and her Dad. The front page of the Prophet read:

_**EMBATTLED MINISTER PUSHES FORWARD CONTROVERSIAL REFORM OF AZKABAN** _

_**CAN THE DEPLETED AUROR OFFICE HANDLE TAKING ON GUARD DUTY AS WELL?** _

Under heavy fire from all sides over the reform of Azkaban, Kingsley would be unlikely to respond well to her lacuna ridden information about a threat that Hermione herself failed to comprehend entirely.  Eventually something  had  to give and that something could easily land Severus in the  would-be  newly reformed Azkaban.  Or Draco. Despite their chequered shared past, Hermione didn’t want Draco to go to prison for doing the right thing for once.  T hen there was the issue of the vampires’ involvement and her missing memory and last but not least, the book in her hand.  She doubted it would prompt anyone to warm up to Severus.  She leafed through it and though she only caught snatches of sentences here and there, she realised she was worrying about the wrong people going to Azkaban because if she ever got her hands on Rita Skeeter, Hermione  was  resolved to use all three Unforgivable Curses on the woman. 

#  # #

Severus was prevented from immediately starting his research on Umbra by an great horned owl waiting for him at Spinner’s End. The message it was carrying bore the Greengrass family crest. Astoria’s letter was short and to the point, though unfalteringly respectful in tone. He wrote back immediately requesting additional details and asking several of clarifying questions. He Occluded when the thought of her age asserted itself. Piteous musing over the girl’s youth would be of no help to her. Life was not fair. Occasionally it was unfair even to harmless, beautiful young girls from good, rich families. Dwelling on it was about as useful as wishing for the sun not to rise the next day.

Once the owl was back on its way, he made himself a pot of coffee and retreated to the lab to work on the modified  Strengthening Solution.  A barn owl arrived late in the afternoon with a message from Hermione. It was written in runes and informed him that she  had  told Kingsley their agreed upon cover story of his affair with Delphine Faust, and  that Hermione herself  would be arriving the next day in the evening, as she had work to catch up on. It was just as well. He had time to modify and test the potion Astoria Greengrass required.

TBC


	26. The Heart of the Serpent

Sitting on the edge of a bed in the currently empty hospital wing, Astoria was careful to look anywhere but at Madam Pompfrey who was currently running her wand over her body, murmuring diagnostic spells under her breath. The pity in the woman’s voice was bad enough, that in her eyes would have been unbearable. The matron made a tut of disapproval in the back of her throat.

“You have lost weight, dear,” she said. “Are you eating properly?”

“I am,” Astoria said distractedly.

“Are you experiencing bouts of nausea again?”

“Sometimes,” Astoria lied. Her condition had nothing to do with her most recent lack of appetite.

“I shall add a hunger-inducing potion to your usual treatment,” Madam Pompfrey said removing her wand. “Meanwhile, you must help the medicine with your own will. I have watched you pick at your food in the Great Hall. When you sit down to eat, you must concentrate on that task and nothing else.”

“I will, Madam Pompfrey, thank you.”

“Is there something bothering you, Miss Greengrass? I have noted several problems in Slytherin House of late. Perhaps I should speak to Professor Slughorn.”

“No,” Astoria said with more force than she intended. She jerked in reaction and her eyes accidentally met those of the matron. “Professor Slughorn is already extremely busy with his teaching,” she hastened to add solicitously. “We, Slytherins, would not want to bother him more than it is necessary.”

Madam Pompfrey looked doubtful. “Does anyone at school know about your condition, child?” she asked gently after a few false starts.

“You know,” Astoria pointed out.

Madam Pompfrey smiled indulgently. “I meant someone other than me. Allowances should be made for your comfort.”

“I don’t want preferential treatment.”

“That is admirable but unneeded….”

“It’s advancing faster than Professor Snape initially calculated when I first collapsed during my third year, isn’t it?” Astoria interrupted, setting aside manners in the face of her mounting suspicion. “How long do I have left?”

Pompfrey hesitated again. “Professor Snape has revised his initial estimate to take into account the impact of the changes in your body during adolescence and the speed at which you developed a resistance to the Strengthening Draught. He has also notified me that he wrote to several healers abroad requesting their council. He is not able for now but he is willing to extend his own research to include the Prince family library in Florence.”

Astoria gulped on a breath. “How long do I have, Madam?” she repeated quietly.

“Fifteen years,” the matron replied. “At best.”

Astoria nodded, glancing away again. Fifteen years. She would die at thirty-two, ten to eighteen years than originally expected. She waited for an onslaught of grief but none came. Instead she just felt numb. Perhaps she had buried her sorrow with her mother or had it scourged out of her at the her father’s trial.

“I shall write to Mr. Snape once more,” Pompfrey continued. “You would need increasingly stronger versions of all the potions you are taking, the Strengthening Draught, and if anyone could produce those, it’s him. Fifteen years is a long time. A cure is not outside the realm of possibility. Meanwhile I must insist that we make your condition known to the rest of the staff.”

Astoria was only half listening. She doubted fifteen years would make a difference even with Severus Snape on the case. She jumped off the bed. “Thank you, Madam, but I am afraid I must insist on your discretion on this matter. I should very much like to lead a normal life… whatever little of it I might have left. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have the N.E.W.T.s to concentrate on.”

Pompfrey rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You are not alone, Astoria.”

Astoria looked at the matron. There was no condemnation or resentment on her kind face. Tears scorched paths down her cheeks. Logically she knew Madam Pompfrey was right: she was not alone. She had her sister, Draco and her friends in Slytherin House. Even Professor Snape, who was not willing to return to them, was still taking an active interest in her treatment, though she was no longer his responsibility. Still on most days, she felt very much alone as her own blood was killing her. And wasn’t that the most clear expression of the sheer futility of her parents’ pure-blood obsession? She only realised that she was sobbing when Pompfrey pulled her into a hug, clutching her against her chest.

“I don’t want to die,” Astoria said amid the tears.

“I know, child,” the matron answered, patting the top of her head. “I know.” 

# # #

When she arrived back at Spinner’s End, Hermione found Severus waiting for her in the sitting room, the tell-tale dark shadows hanging around his eyes. She briefly wondered what had been keeping him awake when she noted the thin glass vial filled with the swirling silvery substance that betrayed a memory, in his right hand. The fingers clutching it were even more stained than usual. She flitted to him, greeting him with a smile, and kissed him fully on the lips.  His mouth twitched under hers but he didn’t kiss her back. She retreated, confused, only to have him press the phial into one of her gloved hands. 

“This is yours,” he said coolly and retreated to his armchair. He sat down and ran a long, pale finger along his lower lip. There was a kind of brownish residue under his overgrown nail. 

“Is it safe for me to have this?” she asked as she removed her coat, gloves and hat, bundled them together, used a Reducto charm before she shoved them into the beaded purse she hadn’t used since the war. 

H is eyes glittered in the shadows enveloping the room. It was late in the evening and the fire burning in the grate was the only light available. “ There are  but a few Legilimens left in the world, let alone in wizarding Britain. However, should anyone attempt to use such skills on you or slip you a dose of Veritaserum, I could aid you expand on your existing rudimentary Occlumency abilities.”

Air stuttered on its way out of her lungs. “You want to teach me Occlumency?”

“If you wish,” he drawled in his soft, bored monotone. 

“Oh, of course I wish it,” she breathed. “Thanks.” 

“I suggest you replace your missing memory,” he droned. “Delphine Faust is on her way here.”

She nodded, uncorked the ampoule and extracted the memory with her wand then pressed it to her temple.  The room with its gloomy setting danced before her eyes and recomposed itself from a different point of view. The memory returned at a dizzying force making her feel as though she were in a car moving at high speed with someone slamming on the pedal violently.  She blinked away the brief bout of nausea. Snape’s onyx black eyes were staring at her intently. She vanished the phial and returned her wand to her jeans pocket. 

“Why?” she asked. She knew he would understand. She had witnessed him practising illegal Dark Magic and now he had just given her back the memory of him colluding with vampires, keeping their secrets and hiding the fact that they had slaughtered witches and wizards, albeit in self-defence. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose, averting his eyes from her. “You trusted me.” 

Her chance at a reply was stolen by a knock at the door. He strolled to answer it in that commanding manner of his. Delphine Faust slipped in, graceful like a swan, in a waft of wintry air and  warm, vanilla-heavy perfume . 

“Mr. Snape,” she said with a smile and a nod. “Madam.” Her head dipped respectfully towards Hermione.

Delphine stuck out at Spinner’s End like a sore thumb. Her long, ashen blonde hair was tied up in a glossy ponytail and she wore an elegant, long, cream coloured coat that Hermione would have bet good money it was designer. Hermione invited her to make herself comfortable. Now that she had no reasons to be suspicious of Delphine, Hermione was curious about vampires and hoped for an opportunity to ask their guest questions that went beyond the situation with Umbra. 

Accepting Severus’ offer of tea, Delphine removed her coat to reveal a posh pencil skirt, high-heeled skinny boots  and a jumper with kimono sleeves. She sat on the couch daintily while Hermione pulled the rickety  desk  chair closer.  Severus returned levitating three mugs on a cracked wood tray, only two of which were steaming.  The crack in the tray matched the one in the foggy glass sugar bowl. He handed the cup of cooled—no doubt by magic—tea to the vampiress. Hermione made a mental note about vampires and scalding drinks. Delphine simpered a little as she thanked him and proceeded to lad her tea with enough sugar to shock even Dolores Umbridge.  Hermione wondered whether this was a personal preference or another vampire thing but since she had no polite way to inquire, she kept  quiet. 

“I have managed to locate a participant to the struggle between the Transylvanian vampires and Dobromir. Unfortunately, despite my assurances, he absolutely refuses to speak to a wizard… or a witch. However, I have managed to persuade him to write down an account of the matter.” As she was speaking, she opened her off-white tote bag. Up close Hermione could see the Dior logo. Delphine extracted two sheets of copy paper and after only hesitating for an instant, held them out to Severus. “It’s rather abridged, I’m afraid.”

Severus scanned the papers quickly then floated them to Hermione. The account was typed instead of written down. It seemed that vampires were much more keen on muggle technology than witches and wizards. 

“If my kind is skilled at anything, it’s recognizing a bigger predator,” Delphine continued, her voice airy. 

Hermione lifted her eyes from the largely useless retelling of the previous, foolhardy attempt at opening a gateway to another world.  There was a lesson to be learned here, she was certain. “That’s why Umbra went for me,”  Hermione said giving Severus a pointed look. “I’m less powerful than you. That’s what predators do, cut the weak ones from the herd. That’s why it’s targeting Muggles,  too .  It senses magic, which explains why it only attacked us after I used the Muffliato charm,  so it identifies  witches and wizards as a threat.”

“You might be the only one,” Delphine said. “We are immune to the effects of the creatures you call Dementors but Umbra consumed the minds of a few of our own before the closing of the gateway Dobromir opened sucked it back into its world. The victims were left empty husks in the aftermath.”

Hermione shuddered recalling the icy touch of the utterly alien malice that made up the mind of Umbra. 

“We thwarted Umbra’s attempt to reanimate a thousand Inferi in Ireland,” Severus said. “It will try again before long in another place. If it is able to perceive magic, it might be possible for it to pre-empt any spells estimating the most auspicious time and place for the rising of Inferi. Would it be possible for your mother to keep watch for any significant disturbances of burial grounds, especially ancient ones, in Europe?” 

D elphine crossed her legs, seeming thoughtful. “ My mother would gladly help with any threat to Muggles but other covens  may be less inclined to do so.  Bathory in Hungary is a right bastard. He would refuse to help on principle, as would everyone in Transylvania.”

“Tell Honterus I know about Lavinia,” Severus said, sounding as bored as ever. “If the Sibiu area coven is agreeable, the others would soon follow suit.”

Panic twisted Delphine’s features and she laughed nervously. “ I suppose he had it coming,” she whispered harshly as if afraid of the words. “We all tried to warn him.”  She checked her oversized, rose gold wristwatch. “If that will be all, I’m afraid I must be going. It’s a long drive to the nearest blood bank.” She peeled to her feet. “Sir, if I may ask, what Vlad Honterus did was beyond ill-advised then again love is a poor counsellor,  but it was consensual. He doesn’t deserve to pay for the crime of loving the wrong woman.” 

Agitation flitted briefly  on Severus’ face before his countenance was once more schooled into an impassive mask. Hermione guessed that, unbeknownst to the vampiress, Delphine’s comment about love had struck a nerve.  He stood, too, very deliberately towering over Delphine. “And he will not. As long as he does what I have requested.”

Delphine nodded sharply. “I’ll see that he does.” 

“Did this Vlad Honterus kill Lavinia?” Hermione asked tersely as Severus closed the door after Delphine. 

“In a manner of speaking,” he replied without turning away from the door just yet. “He made her into a vampire.”

Realisation slithered coldly beneath Hermione’s skin. A lump began to form in her throat. “ She’s a witch, isn’t she?” There was an unspoken agreement between vampires and  W izardkind. As long as the first kept their fangs away from the  latter , the wands didn’t come out.  Turning a witch could easily spark a confrontation. 

H e finally pushed away from the door. He looked even more pallid, if that were even possible. Hermione got the distinct impression  that he hadn’t enjoyed blackmailing a man with the woman he loved. 

“How do you know about it?” she asked. 

“After his return, the Dark Lord wished for information on potential new allies,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“But you told Dumbledore instead.”

He made a dismissive,  jerky gesture with one hand. “Naturally.”

“And Dumbledore…. What did he do?” she asked, feeling restlessness bubbling in her gut. Delphine had said that the turning had been consensual on the witch’s part. So what business was that of anyone but the two people involved? Even as the notion occurred to her, she set it aside as naive. Plenty of witches and wizards would have a cow if they knew she was sleeping with Severus. Many more would throw a potentially dangerous fit if they knew a vampire had turned one of their own.

S everus stopped right in front of her. “Nothing,” he replied mildly. “Albus  appeared to have a certain soft spot for star-crossed lovers.  I have no doubt he took the secret to his grave.” He paused to draw a breath that sounded suspiciously like a tiny sigh. One finger came up to trace her lips  gently . “ I imagine it must be difficult  for you to see your childhood hero tarnished but Dumbledore was not a monster.  He was only human.”  His other hand slipped beneath the hem of her sweater to skim over the skin of her stomach.  Goosebumps bloomed in the wake of his touch.  His mouth came over hers, hot, wet and carnal. She understood why he hadn’t kissed her back upon arrival.  Business before pleasure. She smiled internally as she opened up to him. 

Later they were side by side, naked and crowded in his narrow bed, their legs intertwined. 

“Close your eyes,” Severus said in a voice barely above a whisper. 

Hermione did. 

“Rid your mind of all thoughts,” he commanded, his tone cool and businesslike. “Fall asleep with a blank and calm mind emptied of emotion.” 

H ermione pushed the thought that he was teaching her Occlumency out of her head. She allowed her body to still and relax, focusing on the rhythm of her breathing. In and out. In and out. Intake of oxygen then exhaling. In and out.  Steady and regular. In and out. In and out. In and out….

# # #

Ronald Weasley felt uneasy as she slipped away from the throngs littering Diagon Alley and into Knockturn Alley. He was an adult now, an Auror-in-training and a war hero, he cared not for parental interdictions any more. Still he pulled the hood of his travelling cloak lower on over his eyes as he made his way up the narrow flight of stairs leading to the White Wyvern pub.  The place looked far less forbidding than he could have imagined. In fact, it was not so different from the Leaky Cauldron, merely darker and smaller. Both suited his mood tonight just fine. He ordered a beer at the bar and sat at the empty corner table. 

He was tired and achy all over after a long, gruelling day of training but didn’t feel like going home, because home meant 12 Grimmauld Place and Harry who was  very  excited about the prospect of becoming an Auror. Ron had the sneaking suspicion such a career might not be for him but he had no idea how to quit without disappointing everyone including himself. What kind of a war hero was he if he couldn’t cut it in his Auror training? What kind of an Auror would he make if his preparation left him stumped?  What would his family say? Or Harry? He couldn’t stomach the idea of looking his best friend in the eye and tell him there was something Ron didn’t want to do with him any more. 

And if he quit Auror training, what would he do with his life? He felt no inclination towards anything else at the moment. He had been good enough at quidditch for Hogwarts but not enough to go professional. He had been a decent student but nowhere near as brilliant as Hermione  so that left out lofty professions such as healer or curse breaker. Ministry work didn’t tempt him either; he didn’t think he could resist being cooped up  in office amid paperwork like Percy and their father. Was he to coast on his school and war triumphs for the rest of his life? He took a generous helping of his beer, sloshing some foam on to the table as he did, trying very hard not to think the word failure.

Truth was he did feel like a failure of late. He had just botched his second post-war relationship, failing to turn his friendship with Parvati Patil into something more  just like it had happened with Hermione . As it turned out, shared grief over Lavender made for as  inauspicious of a romance  beginning as a teenage crush and impuls ive snogging during the war.  He was grateful that both he and Hermione had had the foresight to recognize early on that they weren’t working as a couple. They didn’t like the same things, didn’t want to do the same things and the only thing they had in common was their friendship so they  had decided to  revert to that. Hermione  liked to joke that they had saved themselves from a life of couple’ s  therapy, a muggle phrase that had initially confounded him, but when she had explained, he was doubly thankful for their choice. 

It was a time for break-ups among his friends, it seemed. Neville and Luna had recently split, making outings in their extended group unlikely for a while, as things were awkward between the two and nobody wanted to be forced to take sides. They were all growing up, he supposed, discovering the first hurdles of adulthood, the fact that school romances didn’t always end up in happily ever after being just one of them.  Many of them had paired up during the war. It was easy to make grand promises with death staring you in the face. His mother had warned about this sort of things happening  for she had the experience of the First Wizarding War. It was infinitely harder to navigate the murky waters of the minutiae of a relationship .

“Well, well, if it isn’t our king himself.”

Ron froze upon hearing the family shrill voice. Was there no place left where a bloke could go and brood over a pint in peace and quiet? He had been chased from Diagon Alley by the autograph seekers. He lifted his gaze reluctantly to look at Pansy Parkinson standing in front of him with what looked like a bottle and glass of  red current  rum  floating in the air next to her.  She sat herself down across  the table from him without asking for permission. 

“Isn’t there anywhere else you could sit?” he grumbled looking around and noticing that the pub had indeed filled up while he had been busy being depressed. 

“What are you doing on the Dark Side, Weasel?” Pansy asked suspiciously.

“Having a pint,” he replied and took a demonstrative chug of his beer. “I just didn’t think I’d have it next to the person who wanted to feed my best friend to Voldemort.”

“Excuse me for wanting to live.” She took a sip of her own drink and shrugged. “Potter was nothing to me.” 

T he promise of a fight shook him out of his maudlin thoughts. He narrowed his eyes at Pansy. She had grown into her pug face that had become more elongated, baby fat having melted off her jaw. It made her hazel eyes seem enormous. They seemed almost bottle green in the poor light in the White Wyvern. 

“We went to school together for six years, Parkinson. Granted we weren’t friends….” He paused as she snorted, the gruff sound attracting a few looks. “You sang about me being born in a bin,” he pointed out.

“It’s not an insult if it’s true,” she shot back unkindly.

Ron hastened to finish his beer and took such a large gulp that he gagged and was forced to hack some of it out, the liquid dripping from his mouth and nose and spattering down on his robes. Pansy giggled, the sound sharp and acid, fished out a flowery silk handkerchief and handed it to him. 

“Don’t strain yourself, Weasley. Drinking is clearly not a Gryffindor sport.” 

He blew his nose on her fine handkerchief vengefully. “Unlike quidditch,” he quipped. 

“Don’t flatter yourself. Slytherins used to flatten your lot before Potter showed up and saved your sorry arses. Story of your life, isn’t it? Potter’s the hero and you… you’re his faithful shadow following him everywhere like the good puppy that you are.”

“I thought I’m a weasel,” he replied with as much tart as he could muster given that some of her blows had landed. He wiped his mouth with a clean corner of her now soiled handkerchief then tossed it on the table towards her. “I wish I could say it’s been nice seeing you again, Parkinson,” he said and got to his feet.

“Oh, don’t be such a weasel, Weasel,” she spat and waved her wand to transfigure his now empty pint into a clean rum glass. “Sit and drink with me.” She poured him a few fingers from the bottle she had brought along.

“Why?” he asked suspiciously and without sitting back down. 

She shrugged again, her acrimonious expression loosening somewhat. “I’m low on people to drink with these days.” She stared down at the blood red liquid in her own glass. “ And you didn’t try to hex me when I came over here.” 

That made him sit right back down, though he didn’t make to reach for  his fresh drink. “Who’s hexing you, Pansy?”

She was still not meeting his eyes. “As if you don’t know.”

“No, I don’t know,” he said earnestly. 

“You know what? This was a bad idea.” She stood up so abruptly she kicked her chair back, making it swing almost all the way to the floor. 

His hand shot over the table to grab at her sleeve. “No, wait…. I’m telling you I really don’t. I’m oblivious like this. Ask anyone.”

She sat back down slowly,  shaking her arm free as she did. She drank again and he imitated her, grimacing at the sugary sweet taste of the rum. 

“Why aren’t you drinking with Malfoy, anyway?” he asked after a few minutes. “Aren’t you and him… like an item?”

She scoffed again even more gruffly than before. “That was once and never again when we were both a little more than children.  How many of these things last anyway?”

He nodded, thinking back to his extensive experience on the matter. “Not many,” he responded unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice completely. “What about your other friends?” he added, hoping she wouldn’t require him to name any of them. 

“Which one of them?” she asked with a smirk. 

“Milicent Bulstrode,” he said triumphantly after taking a few moments to think.

“Good guess, Weasley. She’s in Azkaban. After your Head of House summarily evacuated us before the battle because obviously we, Slytherins, couldn’t be trusted, Millie decided to prove her right and returned to fight on the Dark Lord’s side. She was injured but not severely, stood trial and was convicted to four years in Azkaban. I wonder if her cell is anywhere near my stupid parents who got five years each and left me alone with my brother and sister.”

He gaped at her in surprise. “You have a brother and a sister? Since when?”

“The sister since I was two. The brother since I was seven,” she quipped.

Ron didn’t take the bait instead straining to remember what he had heard about  the Parkinsons in the frenzy of trials that had followed the war. “Your parents weren’t Death Eaters.”

“That’s why they didn’t end up in Azkaban for life,” she replied drinking again. “They still supported the Dark Lord, though, and helped him seize control of the Ministry. We have a nice country house in southern France, you know. They could have whiled away the war there but no, they had to get involved in politics. Now I can’t show my face anywhere in the wizarding world without getting hexed and my little brother spent a whole summer crying himself to sleep calling for his Mum.”

“Where are your brother and sister?” he asked gently.

She glared at him over the rim of her glass. “At Hogwarts,  you dolt. What do you think? I’m perfectly capable of sending my siblings to school, Weasel.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “And my name’s Ronald… Ron.” 

She rested her elbows on the table looking at him mulishly. “I didn’t go back to  fight against you that day,” she said. “I thought that if just stood aside and waited out the tide, I would be all right… that we would be okay but I was wrong. This is no withstanding this tide.”

R on frowned, bewildered. “What do you mean?”

She looked at him strangely. “Your folks were clever. It pains me to admit it but it’s true nonetheless. They picked the right side all along. Some of us are trying to pretend that it’s just like the last time, that we  c ould survive like we always did but I know better. This was one war too many.  Our world is dying.”

“The wizarding world is not dying,” Ron protested.

“Not that, idiot! _Our_ world, the ancient customs and culture of the pure-bloods and no, I don’t mean the whole Muggles are scum malarkey…. House Slytherin, its values of ambition, traditionalism, cunning and resourcefulness… they are all being pushed out of the Wizardkind. Did you know that this year there was the smallest number of students Sorted into Slytherin since the foundation of Hogwarts? Children from families that have been in our House for centuries were crying and begging the Hat to put them anywhere but in Slytherin. Your friend, Potter, set a mighty fine example. My friend Daphne’s sister, Astoria is trying to adapt to the times. She’s researching Muggles, you see. Twilight of the gods, she calls it after some muggle music piece.”

R on sat back in his chair, aghast and unsure  as to  what to feel. He had had no idea,  busy with the in sane rhythm of Auror training, and surrounded by people who had fought against Voldemort not by his side.  All his life he had detested Slytherins, often with good reason. He still shuddered to think of that awful  _Weasley Is Our King_ song. He wasn’t supposed to  regret  that Slytherin House and everything that it represented might be dying out.  It had also never occurred to him that there might be anything good about the lot of them. Or that Pansy Parkinson might have  anything resembling feelings. 

Pansy raised her glass in a mock toast, an unpleasant grin twisting her full,  rose lips. “To the victors,” she piped up. “Drink up… Ronald. You won.”

He didn’t drink. “Not all Slytherins fought for Voldemort. Some opposed him.”

“Really? Let’s look at a few example, shall we? Professor Slughorn likes to pretend his association with Slytherin is some kind of Sorting Hat error these days. I have a brother and a sister at Hogwarts. Trust me to know as much. As for Professor Snape…. What is it that your side always said? Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater. If you don’t believe me, just read Rita Skeeter’s newest book.”

R on hung his head, gripped by a bad feeling. “Oh, no! She didn’t.”

“She did,” Pansy said nastily. “Truth be told, she only wrote what everyone’s thinking. Like how Professor Snape became a Death Eater because he hated Muggles and muggle-borns... how he never really changed... how he was obsessed with Potter’s mother and wanted Voldemort to kill her son and husband to have her for himself… how the Chosen One is misguided about him… how he bewitched Granger into marrying him… how if the Ministry isn’t careful, he’ll turn into a much worse Dark Lord than Voldemort ever was.”

H e pretended to want to leap to his feet. “I think I’ll go and kill Skeeter now. I’m a member of the Golden Trio. No Wizengamot is ever going to convict me.” 

She shifted in her seat, eyes narrowed,  and drank some more. “ Why would you care what she says about Snape? Wasn’t hating him the favourite Gryffindor pastime?”

“I don’t have to like him to know that all the codswallop Rita Skeeter published about him isn’t true, and more importantly, that if it wasn’t for him, he wouldn’t have won the war.” He finished his drink, as disgusting as it was. “This is not how you treat someone who saved you from being Voldemort’s puppet on a string.”

T here  was  a flash of teeth in the grin his words elicited. 

TBC


	27. On the Inside

The orange flicker of the flames in the grate was the sole illumination in the sitting room at Spinner’s End as Severus stood in front of Hermione, wand at the ready.

“How much has Potter told you of our Occlumency lessons?” he asked in that quiet, calculated voice of his.

Hermione was tense, a single mantra rolling like a penny in her head:  _Try and resist him, don’t gawk at his mind!_ She attempt to imbue her answer with crisp confidence. “A lot,” she replied. 

“Discount the complaining then,” he replied with sardonic quirk of his lips. “Wand out! You may resist my invasion of your mind through any means at disposal, either by disarming me with your wand or by defending yourself with hexes and curses. However, the goal is to repel me with your mind. I shall count to three.”

Hermione shook her head. “Don’t count,” she said, surprised at how raspy her voice came out. “An enemy wouldn’t give  me fair warning. Umbra didn’t, either,” she added, shuddering as she recalled the icy touch of that foreign, utter malevolence.

He canted his head slightly to the side and struck. “Legilimens,” he called out.

Out of habit she let him in easily. Suddenly she was seven again, sitting on the landing in her parents’ home, her knees hugged to her chest, listening to her mother and father talk downstairs as the y picked up after what was supposed to  have been Hermione’s birthday party.

“She needs friends, Jean, friends her own age who would come over for her birthday,” her father was saying.

“We have taken her to be tested for every mental disorder a child her age could have. There is nothing wrong with her,” her mother replied, a frisson of fear in her voice, despite her words. “She is just… withdrawn… introverted.”

“Then maybe it’s us who should do better. We need to socialize her more. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m not thrilled that she had taught herself to read at the age of four but she needs to interact with people, too, not just books.”

A cup dropped and shattered on the kitchen floor as her mother was going through the mail. A ten-year old Hermione looked up from her breakfast. Her mum lunged forward and pulled her against her with one arm, her free hand still holding the opened letter. 

“You’re in, sweetheart,” her mother chirped happily. “Congratulations. I am so proud of you. You’re in! You were accepted at St. Paul’s.” 

“What’s the matter?” her father asked as he came in. “I thought I heard….”

“She’s in, Hugo,” her mother interrupted him, waving the letter of acceptance into the air.

“She’s in,” her father proclaimed, his grin wide and filled with pride, as he sauntered over to put his arms around Hermione and her mother. 

“Hermione! Hermione, dear, there is someone here to see you.” 

Hermione bounded down the stairs, still holding onto her copy of _Matilda_ , which she had been in the process of reading when her mother had called out to her. A tall, statuesque elderly woman with a stern expression stood in the middle of her vestibule, dressed in a curious set of tartan robes.

She had let him get in too far. If she didn’t do something quickly, he would think her completely inept. With an effort she wrenched herself from the memory of her first encounter with Minerva. It wasn’t enough for the sitting room to come in clear focus, as Severus was still pressing into her mind but she became aware of the wand clenched tightly into her hand.

“Expelliarmus,” she said.

A second later she was alone in her head again.  Their eyes met across the carpet in front of the fire place. She realised too late he didn’t need the wand or to utter the incantation  in order to penetrate her thoughts. 

She was flung back to St. Paul’s.

“Creep,” a sharp girl’s voice called out after her. 

Hermione was running  through the courtyard , crying, a few school books clutched to her chest. There was laughter floating around her, mixing in with the name calling.

“Weirdo!”

“Odd bod Granger!”

She saw the stone—a rather large one with sharp edges—lift ahead of her steps. Hermione whirled around  with  it, tears blurring her vision, though a new determination had her clench her fists. 

“No,” she shouted. “Don’t… please….”

The stone dropped back to the ground just inches before slamming into the cheek of the girl nearest to Hermione. 

“Go ahead,” Mr. Ollivander said benevolently. “Give it a wave.” 

Hermione took off running from the memory sprinting out of Ollivander’s shop with a heavy heart, trying hard not to think of what the famous wandmaker had been through during the war. If she slipped down that memory lane, Snape would follow and she would only end up pulling him deeper into her mind. She resisted the pang that urged her to do just that. Struck by an idea, she deliberately guided the two of them to Ollivander’s just as it was now: opened and restored to its former glory. She stood in front of it just as she had the last time she had visited Diagon Alley and closed her eyes starting to count in her head. She focused just as she  did when he had instructed her to empty her mind of emotion before sleep, on her breathing. In and out. In and out. She kept counting, letting her mind void of anything beside the numbers she was tallying. 

W hen she reached three hundred, she felt a hand squeezing lightly on her upper arm, and she opened eyes she hadn’t realised she had closed in reality as well. Severus was looking down at her, his eyes glinting in the shadows. It took her a moment to realise she was on her back on the floor, her left hip smarting. She couldn’t recall falling, either.  She remember ed , however, that this had been happening to Harry a lot during his own Occlumency lessons. 

“Did you hit your head?” he asked, his gaze travelling across the planes of her face. His palm was on her throat, his fingers squirming their way through her hair to feel on her nape. 

She winced when he pressed on a lump he found there. “ I suppose so,” she answered dully. Her head felt twice its size and she had a bizarre sensation of unreality. “It’s not like in the books,” she continued.

“Occlumency is an eminently practical branch of magic,” he said softly. “Certain things cannot be put in writing. Remain there and close your eyes.” His palm moved from the back of her head to cover her eyes as if to aid her with obeying his command. “You may continue counting. It is a crude strategy but it did manage to clear mind. Your mental discipline is superior to that of Potter as is your capacity for following instructions. This need not be as painful.”

She wondered for whom this didn’t need to be painful, for him or  for  her. It was enough to break her concentration. Her eyes flew opened and met his gaze, as he was still kneeling next to her prostate body on the floor. He was in her mind again. She panicked and grew frantic unable to achieve the necessary calm to begin counting once more. She  even forgot how far along she was. And he was moving through the memories of her early years at Hogwarts. He stumbled across the one of her setting his robes on fire and paused. Mortification flooded her. She shouted, hoping to stop him, as she struggled harder but he fed off  embarassment , watching  as she slipped beneath his seat, pull out her wand and….

_Lacarnum inflamare_ .

She rolled on the floor, pawing for her wand. “Lacarnum inflamare,” she repeated.

Her mind was her own instantly. She dropped back on the floor panting, her vision uncertain, and her head pounding. The throbbing in her temples was especially vicious. 

“I imagine you envisage yourself amusing,” Severus grumbled, anger evident in her tone. 

Hermione snorted in an undignified manner. “Scalding retort to be added once my head stops splitting.”

“Get up,” he ordered coolly. “We are done for the evening. I have a limit of being set on fire no more than once in a day.” 

“Do I have to move now?” she moaned.

“Far be it for me to stand in the way of your penchant for sleeping on the floor.” 

“You’re crabby when somebody sets you on fire,” she said, sitting up with a groan, her elbows resting on the floor for support. “Has anyone ever told you that?” 

H e was standing at a safe distance from her, regarding her with a shuttered expression, mirth and fury dancing in those expressive eyes of his. The fire in the grate granted his skin a slight golden tint. Why did everyone think he was ugly just  just  because he didn’t conform to some dull ideal of male beauty? He was striking  and t here was a decided nobility about the careful way in which he held himself, easily dominating every room he was in with sheer magnitude of his commanding presence.  He was magnetic. They really needed to have these lessons sometime other than the evening, perhaps at the weekend, for her head-ache was so bad, she was  that there would be a distinct lack of sex that night. 

H e raised an eye-brow at her staring, prompting heat to flow into her cheeks. She was certain her face had gone scarlet. She pushed herself off the floor with a wince then dropped onto the couch like a log. 

“What did I set on fire this time?” she asked. She had struck blind and couldn’t know if her spell had even reached its target or if he had deflected it on time. 

“My trousers,” he said stiffly. 

“I’ll buy you new ones,” she muttered. “Where did you get ones with so many buttons, anyway?” She rested her pulsing temple on the arm of the couch with a soft, pained moan. “You didn’t get a burn, did you?” she tacked on, her concern bleeding into her voice.

“Not this time,” he answered archly. “You may still get your chance during our next lesson.”

She felt him hover over her, the scent of fresh spice and the lemon of his soap filtering into her senses.  He had washed before she had come over, most likely expecting a different outcome to the evening.  He always washed before they slept together.  A moment later she felt him lift her into his arms. 

“I can’t,” she began. “Not tonight.” Her head was propped against his chest, the wool of his frock coat scratching at her cheek. 

“I know,” he replied. “You cannot sleep here, either. No amount of magic could ever render this sofa even remotely tolerable.” 

S he didn’t bother pointing out that he had once been willing to sleep on the awful couch just so she could have  his bed. He carried her upstairs and laid her down on to said bed carefully. He removed her boots while she started working on taking off her clothes before he moved to take out one of his long, grey nightshirts from the sideboard. He handed it to her without a word. 

Hermione buried her nose in the starched cotton briefly before slipping it over her head. “ Stay with me,” she said. 

He hesitated at the door  then turned back to her. He divested himself of his clothes with a flick of his wand and pulled on a nightshirt like the one he had just given her. He crowded next to her under the blanket and threw an arm over her hips. Hermione pressed her soles to his feet, trying to warm up his rather cool toes.

“Thank you for taking the time to teach me Occlumency,” she whispered against the material of his shirt, as she pressed her face into his chest. “I really appreciate it.” 

S he felt his hot breath on the top of her head. She thought he might have pressed a kiss to her hair  there. 

“Do not forget to empty your mind of all emotion before falling asleep,” he cautioned.

“All right,” she said. “Good night, Severus.”

He didn’t respond and she closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing, as she let her mind go blank. 

He woke her up in the ashen light of the dawn with insistent hands and hot, open-mouthed kisses, and they made slow, wondrous love for a long time. At least, she had made love, running her hands over his scarred, bone-indented skin with all the tenderness her heart could summon.  It had  been so good she walked into work with a big, goofy grin that was wholly unlike her, stretching her lips.  It faded when she found the Auror Office’s scathing indictment of her and Kingsley’s reform of Azkaban waiting for her on her desk.

# # #

Severus waved his wand over the thick, golden potion bubbling in the cauldron. “Evanesco,” he mumbled and straightened himself up.  Bolstering the Strengthening Draught was child’s play. Beating insurmountable odds still escaped  him . He remembered a similar failure and everything in him clenched. He shook his head, driving lanky strands of hair that was oily from potion fumes, into his face, to banish the image of Dumbledore’s disapproving face. Even  without the portrait talking to him, the old man haunted him. He had learnt from Minerva that the portrait had been badly damaged during the battle of Hogwarts. Though repainted, the former Headmaster had never opened his eyes and spoken again. Even if he entertained the absurd notion of returning to Hogwarts, he would never hear his voice again. 

_How many men and women have you watched die?_

As Charity Burbage’s face swam in his mind’s eye, he thought that perhaps it was a good that Dumbledore might not speak again, even from a portrait. This way Severus would not be tempted same as he had been while the Headmaster had been alive to crawl at his feet like the pathetic creature that he was, begging for  a trust and affection that Dumbledore lavished  so thoughtlessly on anyone but him. He had had a unique chance to slander the venerated wizard in the eyes of the Gryffindor princess, none other than Hermione Jean Granger, and he couldn’t bring himself do it. Instead he had tried to mitigate her perception of her fallen childhood hero. 

_ L ately, only those whom I could not save. _

Charity’s face was replaced by that of Astoria Greengrass. He felt the brunt of Dumbledore’s disdain from beyond the grave. He knew what the Headmaster would say. That Severus was incapable of saving a frightened girl during peace time. How could he have thought that he would have been able to save people with a war going on? In the end, the battle had been fought without him because he had been incapable of protecting himself from a snake. The mighty head of House Slytherin!  He slithered out of his parents’ coal shed turned potions  lab . It was snowing outside, fat, white flakes wafting to the muddy ground.  He inhaled the sharp, wintry air deeply, ignoring the foul smell emitting from the river. There was drunken laughter on the street in front of his  house and the sound of glass breaking. 

He found the eagle owl of the Malfoys waiting by his kitchen window. It bore an overly elegant invitation to the Malfoy Christmas party slash house reopening. He was in no mood to attend but not going would only expose him to more visits from Lucius and Narcissa and he scribbled a quick affirmative reply  then sent it back with the bird. Another set of invitations had come in the morning and the day before. One was from Potter inviting him to spend Christmas with him and the Weasleys. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had asked him  over as well. He hadn’t thrown Potter’s invite into the fire for reasons he thought best left unexamined. He had had no such qualms about that from Arthur and Molly Weasley or the one from Horace Slughorn  to his club’s own festive celebration. He knew he was due one from Minerva  and his old Hogwarts colleagues , too, not that he would spare it from the flames. 

L owering himself to his knees, he carefully pried the unsteady door of the tiny cabinet by his desk, beneath the book shelves. The door gave a plaintive creak and all but fell from the hinges as he pressed on it. He extracted the gaudy, bright orange dansette record player he had purchased for himself and his mother with the money he had made doing every odd job he could find in Cokeworth during the summer between his fifth and sixth year at Hogwarts. It wasn’t like there had been anything else for him to do since Lily had stopped speaking to him after… after…  _that_ . 

His father’s old radio had been the only thing in the muggle world that had brought his mother any measure of pleasure. He still remembered how wide her eyes would get and how she would draw closer to the whirring radio, fascinated with muggle music. At times like those, when his father was either away at the mill or at the pub, he could see something on her face that almost approximated joy.  He pulled out a few records, too, and lifted the player gingerly onto the desk.  A full minute later the early strands of Joy Division’s  _Disorder_ filtered into the room.  He lit the fire in the grate with his wand, thinking with deep satisfaction about how much his father would have loathed that. 

H e picked a thick tome from one of his shelves. Christmas was drawing ever so near but it meant little to him. They had never celebrated anything when he had been a child in this house. He had  seen his first Christmas tree at Hogwarts where the Marauders had made fun of him when they  had  caught him staring at the giant fir ones in the Great Hall.  He Occluded against the still intact humiliation of the memory.  He had a wife now and she probably expected him to join her and her friends at the Burrow. She would want a gift, too, he imagined,  wincing. This was yet another thing Dumbledore would judge him for, were he still alive. Putting his hands to Miss Perfect and dragging her to the mud where he lived. 

Why was he still here, he wondered, feeling restlessness blooming under his skin.  Delphine had returned to the Black Forest. Prince Manor was empty as was the  Prince family castle in Florence.  But they both felt alien to him just like the Prince name, of which he stupidly dreamt once, thinking it could elevate him above the misery of his birth when the truth was nothing could. He belonged here, at Spinner’s End. He was Severus Snape, the freaky son of Tobias Snape, and no amount of money, good names and finery could conceal him.  He poured himself a glass of wine he didn’t want and fished a sheet of tobacco rolling him self a cigarette with crushed anise stars. Just one. He wasn’t looking to revert to smoking. He couldn’t afford the effect it would have on his sense of smell and taste, which were vital in a  potion-maker . 

T hings had been quiet, the vampires sending him no news of disturbed graveyards.  Hermione had joked in a letter that perhaps  Umbra had gone skiing somewhere. He hadn’t seen  all that much of his wife since Delphine’s visit for she was swamped at work, fighting to reform an essentially impossible to reform Azkaban. He had read all about it in the Prophet that was currently racking both her and the Minister over the coals for it.  With  the  Auror Office depleted by the war, they didn’t have enough manpower to deal with the day-to-day work of the department, let alone guard Azkaban. Then there was the matter of what to do with Dementors who had returned to the island after Voldemort’s defeat and  to  their duty, having nowhere else to go. Nobody wanted to face an invasion of the island. Foreign ministries were furious  as well , fearing an invasion of the continent. 

He could wash up and go to see his wife, he thought as he smoked, spend an evening pretending to be normal, have sex, seek oblivion in Hermione’s young, firm body. He shuddered with both horror and delight at the memory of what he had done to that body the last time he had sought to take something out on her. He tossed the bud of his cigarette into the fire, switched off the record player and went to get his travel cloak.

In the street he listened for sounds betraying a human presence. When he found none, he disapparated. He apparated again just outside the Hogwarts grounds. His heart was beating an uncomfortable staccato in his chest. It was his first time here since the cursed year he had spent as the school’s most hated Headmaster. It was late in the evening so he didn’t fear being seen, though the wards around the place could alert Minerva to his presence. It wasn’t snowing in Scotland but it was colder than in Cokeworth. Severus felt chilled on the inside, too.

The castle loomed on the horizon, its windows  cheerfully lit, unchanged as if the war and his own reign of terror over the school had never happened.  From this angle he couldn’t pinpoint the Astronomy Tower but just knowing it was there made everything in him seize up. 

_You alone know whether it will harm your soul to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation._

_It has harmed my soul_ , he wanted to yell. _It’s still harming my soul_. Were murders even allowed to lash out at their victims? He flew past the gates but the wards and protective spells didn’t try to force him out. They didn’t even chafe as he breached them, obviously recognizing him. He landed on the shore of the lake. The White Tomb had been restored much like the castle. He set his hand on the cold stone before he realised what he was doing then retracted it a moment later. The touch had scorched him, though his hand was intact. His wand hand. The one that had cast the Killing Curse.

_Severus… please…._

_Why did it have to be me?_ , he wanted to shout. Why couldn’t you see anything more than a useful monster in me? All that came out, however, was  _forgive me_ , as he dropped to his knees beside the grave. Grief welled within him a suffocating power. He squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught of tears he couldn’t fully prevent.  _I am sorry_ , he thought desperately.  _I am sorry I could not stop the curse. I am sorry I could not save you._ _I am sorry I was unworthy of your love and respect. I am sorry I am still nothing more than the pathetic, sad freak_ _of_ _Spinner’s End. I am sorry I wasn’t strong enough to say ‘no’._ _I am sorry, sorry, sorrier than even you will ever know._

He hid his face in his hands, the white of the tomb bright even  in the dark of the night. He sobbed and sobbed for a long time, hating his weakness, yet unable to stop begging for a forgiveness he knew he would never receive.  When he finally managed to drag himself upwards on legs so feeble, they would barely sustain him, he glanced back up at the murky  skies and his mind slid back to Umbra. 

_Pain_ , Hermione’s voice said clearly from his memory. _I think I accidentally managed to make it experience my anguish and it repelled it._

Dementors could be fought off with a patronus charm that was born out of an intensely happy memory.  If a perfect opposite could be created from a dreadful memory, it might serve as a weapon against Umbra. His Occlumency walls had held in the short battle he had had with it but those took years to build. Any other witch or wizard would be easy pray to the creature. A weapon that could be universally yielded was required.  He looked to the tomb but it stood before him cold and quiet with no  counsel to offer. He regretted his previous relief at Dumbledore’s portrait going silent.  He had been doing Dumbledore’s bidding for most of his adult life. Without Dumbledore to guide him, he felt himself flounder. Perhaps that was the reason he had been taking so many lecherous liberties with Hermione. He couldn’t imagine how much more he would disgust the Headmaster if he knew what Snape had been doing  with and to one of the Headmaster’s favourite Gryffindor cubs . 

TBC


	28. The Slytherin Bandwagon

For as long as he could remember, Ronald Weasley had always had someone or something to live up, be it his older brothers’ school successes, his little sister’s prodigious talent in both magic and Quidditch or his and his friends’ own achievements. He’d always been in someone else’s shadow, even when that someone was himself. After the war, everyone expected great things from Ronald Weasley, war hero and best friend of the Chosen One and the brightest witch of her age. But Ron wasn’t brilliant like Hermione or special like Harry. He was just a regular bloke and though, as a teenager he had struggled with that, for every teen wanted to be set apart by something, the more he matured, the more he discovered just how much he would have wanted to be normal. However, that wasn’t on the cards for him. Everyone had too many expectations of him. Ron knew he would grievously disappoint all of them one day and lived in fear of that occasion.

“Sit down, Pansy,” he grumbled. “People are gawking.”

She guffawed in that loud, gruff way of hers. “You mean Muggles are gawking,” she corrected him sourly but sat down.

Pansy had no expectations of him. On the contrary. She seemed surprised each time she discovered she considered to be of value about him.

A waiter approached them and Ron asked for a beer and something called a Daiquiri. The waiter looked almost offended at Ron’s pronunciation of the drink and made a show of repeating the name the correct way when he needlessly checked to see if he got their order right. Pansy wore a gleeful look of vindication while Ron just shrugged. The place was on the posh side. Hannah Abbott had brought them there during their last group outing. It had a shadowy atmosphere he had thought Pansy might enjoy, violet leather couches, geometric shaped metal tables and black and white posters covering the walls almost in their entirety. Music with a steady, rhythmic beat pulsed through the room while a singer with a rough voice unlike that of any singing witch Ron knew of, droned about someone named Maria.

“Interesting music,” Pansy muttered darkly.

Upon closer inspection and much to Ron’s amusement, he noted that she was bobbing her heat to the beat.

“I should bring Astoria here,” she added. “She might like it. She is rather keen on everything muggle these days.”

Ron paused, puzzling over who Astoria might be. “Your friend, Daphne’s sister,” he realised. “Why is she so interested in Muggles all of the sudden?” he continued. Astoria was a Greengrass, who were pure-blood royalty and as anti-muggle as they came. Both of the Astoria’s parents had been Death Eaters.

Pansy shrugged, fiddling with the menu, though her body language was far less nonchalant. “She keeps saying she wants to understand. Her father’s trial really shook her up… especially so soon after her mum’s death. She died during the battle of Hogwarts, you see.”

Ron nodded grimly. “I’m sorry for your friend,” he said sincerely. “You know I lost my brother, Fred. I hardly think grief picks sides.”

Pansy’s full, rosy lips twisted in an odd sneer. “You’d be less sorry if you knew what her father did. Her mother, too, I suppose. Anyway, Astoria worshipped them both. They were loving, doting parents. They didn’t carve up Muggles at the dinner table or something. Oh, we all knew what Death Eaters and the rest of their lot got up to… only that we didn’t. We had a kind of a foggy idea or if he suspected, we looked the other way for fear of what we might discover if we didn’t. Hearing everything outin the open like that drove Astoria barmy. She got up in the middle of the trial and started sobbing and shouting: _Daddy, it’s not true, tell them it’s not true… tell them you could never commit such horrors_ . Daphne and I had to drag her out. Of course, it was all true, though. She didn’t eat for days after her father was convicted, screamed in her sleep…. Daphne and I were thinking of taking her to St. Mungo’s when she came down to lunch and announced there had to be something horribly wrong with this whole _Muggles and muggle-borns are scum_ notion if it drove people like her parents to do such awful things. Since then she’s all Muggles this and Muggles that.”

Ron smiled a bit at the end, despite the sinking feeling Pansy’s tale had given him. “She sounds like my father. He’s fascinated by Muggles, too.”

“At least, your father works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. He’s got an excuse. Astoria is just annoying.” She paused while the waiter brought them their order. “What are you having, Ron?” she asked, while the waiter stood by them expectantly. Pansy was staring at the menu dubiously, obviously confounded by the muggle dishes listed there.

“Gammon, egg and oven chips,” he told her, as he turned his gaze on their superior-looking waiter.

“That sounds about right,” she muttered. “One for me, too… please.”

She eyed the tall glass with the oddly named, cloudy drink and a lemon wedge shoved onto one side of its wide mouth. “What is this?” she asked suspiciously.

“A Muggle drink Ginny really likes. It’s a type of cocktail.” Seeing her suspicion mount, he hastened to explain. “Cocktails are mixed drinks. Muggles like to put all kinds of alcohol in together and douse them with juice and ice and the like.”

“Funny folk, these Muggles.” She took a tiny, cautious sip of her drink then smacked her lips together loudly before swallowing a much larger second swig. “But not all their ideas are bad.” She grappled for the menu. “Or so Astoria insists. What other types of cocktails are there?”

Ron laughed a little at that. “I like Muggle pubs,” he said apropos of nothing. “I can be anonymous here. There are no autograph seekers around, you know.”

“Or people looking to hex you,” she added distractedly. “What does this taste like?” she asked thumping an index finger over the words Pina Colada.

Ron just rolled his shoulders. “No idea. To tell you the truth, I mostly drink beer everywhere.”

# # #

Ron shuffled his feet as he neared 12 Grimmauld Place. He knew he’d missed dinner and that Harry would want to know where he had been. He didn’t lying to his best friend but he didn’t feel like giving up Pansy, either. Not yet, anyway. His entire life he had to share things. Growing up, hand-me downs had made up the vast majority of his possessions. At school and during the war, Harry, Hermione and he had been practically living in each other’s pockets. He wanted to keep Pansy for himself and not have to share her with anyone else for as long as he could, which was as absurd as it got. He and Pansy were not seeing each other. There was no snogging or hand-holding. He wasn’t even sure they were friends. They just went out for drinks occasionally and sometimes grabbed a bite to eat, too.

Herein lay his other problem with Pansy. If he told Harry and Hermione, they would want to know what was going on with the two of them and the truth was he had no idea. Besides, if he told Harry, Ginny would get it out of him sooner or later. If Ginny knew, it would be only a matter of time until everyone in his family found out. And he absolutely did not want to have to field those kinds of questions about Pansy from his mother. It twinged a bit to think that if something happened between him and Pansy, not that he was interested in that, mind you, his mum would have a cow over it. She hadn’t liked Fleur; she still didn’t like Fleur. He shuddered to think how she might react if he showed up at the Burrow with Pansy freaking Parkinson of all people.

Crookshanks greeted Ron with his usual mix of spitting and hissing when he entered the house. With Mrs. Black’s portrait gone, Ron could always count on the cat’s vitriol instead when Hermione was around. Hermione was here! He sprinted downstairs to the kitchen where the three of them usually congregated when they got together. Once there, he saw with an unpleasant twist in his gut that they had a fourth to their party.

“Hullo, Ronald,” Dudley Dursley said with a friendly wave.

Ron opted for a half nod as his greeting. He could understand Harry’s forgiving of Severus Snape. The man had always died for the entire wizarding world, not that many of the ungrateful bastards in it acknowledged it, and had stepped up and married Hermione, however unwillingly, when Rita Skeeter had gotten her into trouble. That entitled the dark wizard to a monumental break, in Ron’s book. But Dudley Dursley had hardly done a thing to deserved Harry’s forgiveness and affection or so Ron thought.

“Dudley’s in town to look at technical colleges,” Harry explained cheerfully. “He wants to study computers. I told him that if he decides for one in London, he can come live here with us. It makes no sense for him to pay rent when he have all this space we don’t use.”

“No, it makes no sense,” Ron agreed hollowly.

Hermione shot him a pointed look as she handed him a cup of tea. Hermione was firmly in the letting the past in the past camp when it came to Dudley more out of a wish to support Harry than out of conviction. “Do you want a scone, Ronald?” she asked with an exaggerated type of cheer. “Dudley brought them, you see.”

Ron took a scone grudgingly. Dudley said something about some bakery in Little Whinging. Ron fervently hoped that Dudley would have as much trouble with technical colleges as he did with universities, saving them from him coming to live at 12 Grimmauld Place.

“I was just telling Dudley,” Harry began, casting Ron a desperately hopeful look. “that we are all spending Christmas with your family at the Burrow. I’m sure your parents wouldn’t mind if I invited Dudley and my aunt and uncle, too. I just know that your father, for one, would be thrilled to have Muggle guests for the holidays.”

Ron looked to Hermione but her frown heralded nothing good. Outnumbered, he hid a sigh. “Yeah, sure, we’d love to have the Dursleys over.”

Dudley’s blue eyes found the table top suddenly very interesting. “I don’t think my parents would want to come… but I… I would like it very much. Sure, I’d drop by. Thanks, Harry… and Ron, too.”

Ron thought having Harry’s cousin over for Christmas would at least make for a good opportunity for some discreet hexing. Maybe he could get something from George’s shop.

“Look what Dudley brought me,” Harry said pushing something at Ron.

“I thought it’d make for a nice early Christmas present,” Dudley muttered, sounding almost embarrassed. “I found it among mum’s old things when we returned back home after… well, you know, after you sorted out your problem with that evil wizard bloke and his followers.”

“It’s a very thoughtful gift, Dudley,” Hermione encouraged in a gentle voice.

Said gift consisted of a rather large Muggle photograph of Harry’s mum when she had to have been about their age now. The picture had a well-worn, leathery frame. Ron studied the image thoughtfully for a while. Lily Evans Potter had truly been a stunningly beautiful woman but that wasn’t the only thing that was arresting about her. Her gaze sparked with mirth and intelligence, and her smile was full of the same kindness Ron was used to expect from her son. He returned the photograph to Harry, careful to manipulate it as gingerly as possible. He knew how much this small mementos meant to his friend. As he stretched himself over the table, he caught sight of Hermione out of the corner of one eye. If he hadn’t known better, he would have judged her expression to be a stricken one, as odd resentment glimmering in her gaze. When he sat back down, he caught her eye but by then, whatever he had thought he had seen was gone so Ron guessed the whole thing had been a trick of the light that was still not the best in the old house.

# # #

Hermione felt awful. What kind of a friend was she if she was jealous of Harry’s mum who had died to save him, a woman struck down at such a young age by the worst wizard to ever live? But she couldn’t help herself. For as much as the photograph Dudley had brought meant to Harry, it served as a cruel reminder to Hermione that she could never compare to Lily Evans Potter. Sure, she turned a head or two when she walked down the street, but Lily Evans had been gorgeous, possessing the kind of beauty Hermione had previously thought relegated to film screens and fashion magazines.

The picture was a full body one and in it, Lily wore a floral dress that wrapped around her lovely sloped feminine curves. She was tall and statuesque while Hermione was slight and still somewhat awkward. Though she had once been grateful to have dropped all that baby fat, she realised now that she had a bit of a stick figure and looked rather boyish, a fact not helped by her penchant for trousers and jeans. She didn’t look feminine at all, unlike Lily. Then there was the hair, the bane of Hermione’s existence. Lily had had bright red hair that looked like liquid flames cascading around her perfect face in soft waves. Despite being a redhead, Lily had had no freckles, her skin ivory and shining with a healthy glow. Meanwhile Hermione was afflicted with a lot of freckles, especially on her shoulders. If Lily had only been beautiful, Hermione might have borne it, she thought. But then Lily had also been kind to the point of sainthood, bright and gifted as a witch. In other words, perfect in every way. How could one compete with perfection?

Words floated through her mind, whispered in her husband’s silky voice, husky with pleasure.

_You are beautiful…._

_I want you…._

The way he said her name when they were in bed together…. She shook her head and took a sip of her tea that had gone cold. Even Hermione knew that men said all sorts of things they didn’t mean during sex. She tried not to attach too much meaning to them. There would always be three people in their marriage: Severus, Hermione and the ghost of Lily Evans.

Setting her cup back on its saucer, she forced herself back to the here and now just as Harry was carefully attacking the neutral subject of Quidditch. Ron didn’t like Dudley, holding onto grudges Harry had already let go of, a sentiment Hermione partially understood, though she was more willing to make an effort for her friend’s sake. Dudley asked about the rules with genuine curiosity and Hermione felt comfortable tuning out again. Ron and Harry wouldn’t expect her to chime in when it came to Quidditch. She took a scone from the plate to give herself something to do.

# # #

The howler exploded all over Hermione’s desk with a final disgruntled grunt. You would think she was trying to free every inmate in Azkaban the way everyone was reacting, though overreacting was more like it. The day’s Prophet had included a particularly nasty editorial accusing her of being influenced by her dark wizard husband with her proposed reform of the prison. As if Severus cared about such things! How many times did he have to save the world before everyone would lay off him?

She glanced over her half finished addendum to the new Azkaban legislation. Following her study of corresponding Muggle laws, she aimed to introduce the concept of rehabilitation instead of punishment in the wizarding penal vocabulary. She wished to make provisions allowing the inmates’ family to visit them on occasion, and for the least dangerous of them to be able to free themselves earlier if they demonstrated good behaviour and willingness to make up for their crimes. Also she had advanced a motion to renovate the fortress and build an inner courtyard where prisoners could go for daily walks. If everybody most associated the law with her and hated her for it, she might as well go for broke.

Casting a tempus, she discovered she should have gone home over three hours ago. She sighed and stretched her arms in front of her. Her head was pounding and she was hungry, not having eaten anything since the sandwich she had inhaled at lunch over her paper stacked desk. Still she had the Christmas related invitations to reply to. She was supposed to go to the Ministry gala, as loath as she was to attend in the presently charged atmosphere. The only good thing was that it happened to fall on the same day as the Slugclub Christmas party so she could, at least, avoid that one. She wondered what excuse Harry would give. Neither had any appetite to be paraded around by Slughorn like prized horses. Still she redacted a courteous response to her former professor bringing up the perfect excuse provided by the Ministry event.

Next was a green tinted envelope with the Malfoy crest. She almost tossed that one into the bin before she remembered that Severus and the Malfoys visited each other. Was he going and if yes, would he expect her to go with him, especially given the recent change in their relationship? The mere thought of setting foot in Malfoy Manor again made her skin crawl and the scars on her arm burn. She opened the enveloped with no small amount of trepidation. The invitation was overly long, overly polite and signed by Draco. What was he up to now? She sighed and told herself not to be paranoid. Perhaps her being married to Severus made her a Slytherin-in-law, which entitled her to a change of attitude from Draco. She chortled at that, banishing those thoughts. That was naive thinking. But she had too much on her plate to worry about Malfoy’s petty intrigues.

She rubbed at a temple, casting the mountain of invites on the corner of her desk an ugly look. She didn’t want to have to deal with them on top of everything else but it didn’t look like she had a choice. Settling back in her chair, she grabbed for feather and quill once more. She would be at her desk for at least, another hour.

When she finally managed to drag herself home, her head-ache had got vicious. Though her stomach was cramping with hunger, all she wanted was to cuddle up in bed with Crooks and go to sleep. Preferably into the next week. When she opened her door, she found Severus in her living room, a stack of unfamiliar tomes climbing from her coffee table. Panic acted like a cold shower, driving some of her exhaustion away.

“What has happened?” she asked. “Did Umbra surface again?”

He shook his head, studying her with those bottomless, dark orbs of his. Was it her imagination or did he look paler than his usual? That he wasn’t sleeping, either, was obvious by the dark, sunken circles around his eyes.

If it wasn’t here on Umbra’s account, then he had to want sex. Hermione could barely stand. Still she was unsure how to refuse him without losing her only leg up on Lily Evans. He drew closer, his expression carefully blank, though his eyes narrowed. Hermione’s heart sank.

“Stay here,” he said as her brushed past her. “I shall return momentarily.”

“Where would I go?” she shot over her shoulder. “This is my flat.”

He was out of the door with a quick sweep of his dramatic, black robes. She heard the crack of him disapparating just outside her door. Her wards prevented apparition in her flat. Confused and more than a little worried, she dropped her purse on the couch, peeled off her coat then went to release a mewling Crookshanks from where he was sequestered in her bedroom. She had a feeling it had been Severus’ doing. She picked up her cat and placed a kiss on his forehead.

“I know,” she murmured. “She doesn’t love me any better, either.” She stroked his back a few times before settling him down on the floor then ambled into the kitchen.

She fed Crooks first then gave the collection of half-eaten taken out food in her refrigeration a cursory glance. The chicken tikka masala and the steamed basmati rice were just from the night before, as far as she remembered. She also found some yellowing lettuce and a few old tomatoes she had no idea when she had bought. Some creative use of spells later, she had wiped up a salad and warmed up the leftovers. She was just putting the kettle on when Severus came back with the lime green potion that he had given her for a head-ache before, and a vial of Pepper-Up.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the potions from him gratefully.

She felt better almost immediately after drinking them. He quietly helped her set up dinner for two at her kitchen table. She made a pot of her sweet sakura tea, the only one she had. Since he didn’t comment on it, she poured each of them a cup, then settled down to eat. The smell of food had reminded her just how ravenous she was.

Crooks courted Severus shamelessly during dinner, rubbing himself on his legs, most likely smattering his impeccably black trousers with cat hair. Severus ignored him, which only made Crooks purr louder and attempt to climb into his lap. It was then that Hermione decided to interfere. She snatched her cat who gave a loud wail at that, and proceeded to squirm in her grasp.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a smirk. “You’re the only person he knows who’s just as antisocial as him. It’s only natural she wants you two to stick together.”

Severus’ dark eyebrow went up… and up… and up until it almost disappeared into his lanky, black hair. He took another, daintily tiny bite of his chicken and didn’t take the bait.

Hermione smiled sweetly at him, as she was struggling to place a struggling Crookshanks on her own lap. “Honestly, I’m trying to help you out here. Otherwise you’ll have to face the fact that somebody likes you. A cat nonetheless. Everyone knows they’re far harder to please than humans.”

He sneered as he shot her withering look. “Your animal has most peculiar tastes,” he enunciated primly.

“I’m telling you he feels a kinship with you. He dislikes everyone, too. If he could live as a recluse in a ghost infested mansion up North, we would.”

“You are the picture of subtlety tonight, Hermione,” he groused.

“If that means I’ve progressed past insufferable know-it-all, I’ll take it.” She sipped at her tea. “Speaking of living like a hermit, you wouldn’t happen to go to the Malfoy Christmas ball, would you?”

“It is the only manner in which I can avoid visiting Lucius and Narcissa for New Year’s.”

“Draco sent me an invitation, too,” she pointed out. “I’m not expected to go as well, am I?”

“Expected by whom?”

She pointed her fork at him and he bristled, his eyes coldly derisive.

“I would think the Weasleys would take all of your time at Christmas.” Some of the derision leached into his tone.

“Good,” she said. “Then it’s settled.” She waited for them to take a few more bites before adding something else. “I know Harry and Molly and Arthur invited you to the Burrow for Christmas, too. They didn’t do it just to be polite. They’d really like you to come and it’d really mean a lot to Harry.”

His eyes fixed the plate, his distant expression hard to decipher, then his gaze snapped back to her face and his face became far less difficult to read. “I long for the halcyon days when Potter and his merry gang of Weasleys shared in my loathing of them,” he griped, his tone as testy and as snide as it was in Potions class.

“That sounds like a plan to me,” Hermione fired back, starting to get irritated. “You won’t come to the Weasleys with me and I won’t go the Malfoys with you.”

“Hermione, do you truly wish to return to Malfoy Manor for any reason? According to the tedious complaints in the letters Lucius insists on regaling me with, Narcissa has completely redecorated the mansion. However, it still remains the same place where you were tortured and branded. I derive no pleasure from revisiting it, either. You are not the only one who harbours disturbing memories about what went on within those walls while the Dark Lord inhabited them.”

Shame washed over Hermione hotly. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, hanging her head. “I was being unfair.” She dared sneak her hand across the table to rest it over the one of his not clutching a piece of tableware. When his hand remained immobile beneath hers, she marshalled her forces and tacked on: “Why are you going then?”

His hand shifted beneath hers until it was palm up and his fingers intertwined with hers. “Lucius and Narcissa and what is left of their circle might not be my friends but… they have been in my life since I was Sorted into Slytherin. You may think them despicable and in some ways, they certainly are, but this has been my world since age eleven. Before that it had been my mother’s world.”

That struck her as very sad, though his tone, as he had explained all this to her, was his usual soft drone. She squeezed the tips of his fingers harder, wanting to tell him that the world of the Slytherins was not the only thing he had but she recognized that she needed to be realistic. Severus and the Weasleys were radically different people. It was highly unlikely he would ever fit in easily among them. Then he took her aback for a second time that evening for he lifted her hand from the table and brushes his lips delicately across her knuckles before relinquishing his grip on her, his eyes still resolutely not meeting hers.

Hermione had yet another chance to feel foolish that night when he said: “I have made some progress on Umbra I thought you might wish to be appraised of.”

So he wasn’t there to sleep with her. Though she knew she was too exhausted for that, she couldn’t help but feel strangely disappointed at his pronouncement.

TBC


	29. The Worm in the Rose

Astoria had never felt better. The modified Strengthening Draught had worked its magic. She no longer woke up nauseated and exhausted.  Also s he had enough of an appetite to give a werewolf a run for its money. If she felt inclined to pretend, she could almost imagine herself healthy. Better yet, she didn’t have to return to Greengrass Manor for Christmas and face the ghost of everything she had lost since the Battle of Hogwarts.  Not to mention the actual ghosts of the mansion that took extra care to remind of her family’s long-held toxic beliefs had destroyed her parents.  Her sister, Daphne, had gotten a chic little flat in London to be close to her place of employment at Flourish and Blotts. 

D espite the painful memories the holidays evoked, Astoria couldn’t wait to see the look on Draco’s face when he saw her in the robes she had had made for her attendance of the Malfoy Christmas party.  She was just rifling through Witch Weekly looking to past the time until she was due for her final fitting at Twilfitt and Tattings, when she heard the door bell. She sauntered to it, enjoying the natural skip in her step. Narcissa Malfoy stood before the threshold dressed in a sumptuous midnight blue cloak threaded with glimmering silver. 

“Madam Malfoy,” Astoria said, curtsying to cover up her surprise. “Please come in.”

The other witch practically glided it, the long train of her cloak brushing Astoria’s dove grey house robes. Astoria closed and warded the door. She took her illustrious guest’s cloak. The material was like velvet to the touch but it was thicker and heavier. Ornate seams closed it over the chest. Astoria was careful to hang it by hand. Astoria turned and took a moment to admire Narcissa’s shiny, ecru robes before she invited the other witch to sit and offered her refreshments only to be politely rebuffed.

A regal smile stretched Mrs. Malfoy’s  thick, coral red painted lips. “Sit, please,” she  said and  indicated  the  chintz burgundy armchair across from her as if she were the host and not Astoria. 

Feeling light-headed, Astoria sank down across from Narcissa as gracefully as she could. Narcissa’s smile turned indulgent.

“My husband is resolutely against a union between you and Draco, Miss Greengrass, but then you must know as much.”

“It is too soon in our relationship for Draco and I to have discussed marriage,” Astoria said sincerely.

Narcissa held up one long, elegant finger  c apped with a pointed black and white nail. “ Do not interrupt me, dear,” she countered, condescension dripping from her airy tone. “It is bad form. Surely you were taught proper manners by your dearly departed mother.” She paused for the full effect of her words to sink in, forcing Astoria to look down at her feet, face burning with shame. “ As I was saying, Lucius is opposed to any association between you and our son and who can blame him? The things we have been hearing about you of late are simply appalling but that would be a small matter if you possessed the ability to make Draco happy. You will never understand for sadly you are not meant to become a mother  yourself , but there is nothing more precious to one than the happiness of her child.  If your newly-found beliefs were the sole objection against you, I could persuade Lucius to grant you and Draco his consent, however….” She halted again, eyeing Astoria severely. “ Am I correct in presuming  that  my son is ignorant of the full  truth of your condition?”

Astoria nodded slowly, feeling shame for an entire different reason. “ It is not certain I shan’t  be able to bear children,” she said as she fought tears. “With the proper potions and the proper care, child-birth would not be excluded for me.” 

“Yet it still remains highly unlikely,” Narcissa clamoured acerbically. “which means that if my son marries you, the Malfoy line and what remains of the unadulterated blood of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black will die with Draco. He will never have an heir. Instead he will be tied to a slowly dying woman he would be duty bound to care for. Is that what you wish for him? To spent the better years of his life as a nursemaid only for him to be left alone and broken-hearted in the end?”

A  tear did roll down Astoria’s cheek  this time , leaving a blazing trail in its wake. “ Do you think perhaps that I have not considered all these things?”

Narcissa’s smile could almost be gentle, though her eyes were cold and unforgiving. “ I would not be here if I didn’t believe you did.  Tell me, do you love my son?”

“I do… with all my heart,” Astoria whispered softly, the words hurting her throat on their way out.

Narcissa leaned forward in her seat, her eyes warming up a bit. “Then I beseech you: release him, allow him to find happiness with a  woman next to whom he can grow old. Let him  have  the joy of fatherhood.”

Something wild rose within Astoria, even as ice spread through her veins. “Shouldn’t this be Draco’s decision?”

Narcissa’s beautifully drawn eyebrows gathered closer. “You are a young woman now, Miss Greengrass. As such, you must come to understand that we are called upon to make the difficult decisions men do not have the stomach for.” She pulled to her feet, looking at Astoria in a manner that made her feel very small indeed. “I’m afraid I have taken enough of your time. You should know that my husband and I would not be offended if you choose not attend the Malfoy Christmas Ball, owning it to your new and improved comprehension of the world.”

Astoria’s feeling of wellness had evaporated entirely. Her heart felt  twice its size, having grown to occupy all of her chest, threatening to suffocate her. She wanted to do all manner of undignified things like yelling and ranting at her guest, telling her she had no right, but the other witch had spoken of realities that had given Astoria more than one sleepless nights. She bowed before she ventured to return Narcissa her super b cloak.

“I thank you, Madam, for your understanding and words of wisdom,” said Astoria quietly.

Narcissa put on her cloak with swift yet smooth dexterity. “ I am not unsympathetic, Miss Greengrass. I only  want to protect my son. He had such a difficult start in life. He deserves to be happy and at peace at last. If you love him, you will understand as much.” 

Astoria nodded glumly and accompanied her guest to the door. “Madam Malfoy,” she said courteously  in lieu of a goodbye . 

Narcissa surveyed her sternly. “Farewell, Miss Greengrass. I wish you best of health.”

The bitter irony of it did not escape Astoria. She shut the door with a quiet snick and turned around. Her sister’s charming flat no longer looked so cosy.  Astoria’s horned owl was in its ornate cage in her bedroom. Astoria began to plan, ignoring the numbness spreading through her limbs.  First, she needed to cancel her appointment with  Twilfitt and Tattings  but also make sure they were  compensated for their laudable effort. Then she would write to Draco and ask to see him. His mother was right: Astoria couldn’t give him children or make him happy. If they persisted, Draco would ask for her hand in marriage sometime after she graduated. Nothing but a life of misery and death awaited him after that.  If Astoria had been less selfish, she could have seen that a while ago. 

A s she sat down at the little mahogany desk in her sister’s study, she realised just how much of a Slytherin she truly was. Those in her House were said to have a propensity for deep-abiding unrequited lov e. Even their ghost, the Bloody Baron, had been thus afflicted. Astoria would make no exception. And wasn’t it especially cruel that she had understood that she loved Draco—truly, genuinely loved him—just as  she was letting him go? 

Setting down her quill in the middle of a sentence, she retreated to her bedroom and  grasped the book on her bedside cabinet.  It was Muggle. She opened it and read.

_O Rose, thou art sick!_ _  
_ _The invisible worm_ _  
_ _That flies in the night,_ _  
_ _In the howling storm,_ _  
_ _Has found out thy bed_ _  
_ _Of crimson joy:_ _  
_ _And his dark secret love_ _  
_ _Does thy life destroy._   


It was exactly how she felt: like a rose eaten alive by a secret worm. She checked the name under the title. William Blake, a Muggle poet who had died a full century before. Yet he had known exactly what Astoria—a witch—was going through now. She flashed back to the last meeting before  the  Christmas holiday of the Slytherin Muggle book club she had organized.  They had read Macbeth by a famous Muggle author, William Shakespeare, and it had sparked debates so fierce, that it had lead to a few duels that still settled nothing.  The shouting had only paused when Travers, son of a Death Eater and captain of their Quidditch team, had wondered quietly: “Do you think that perhaps they’re not so different from us… Muggles, I mean?” 

Still holding the book, Astoria went to the window and stared at the quaint, narrow street below. The brownstone was located not far from a fashionable commercial artery so the pavements were overcrowded with Christmas shoppers.  She watched them for a while from her high window. She saw children hanging onto their mothers, smiling faces, frowning ones, too, hurried steps and a lot of package lugging.  That had to be difficult without the ability to levitate things.  Her parents had hunted people like this for their and the Dark Lord’s entertainment. They had advocated for the mass murder of the witches and wizards born of them.  People like that blond child  who looked a bit like Daphne and was looking up at his grinning mother. People like the poet, William Blake, who had written about Astoria’s pain a century before she felt it. 

She grasped the burnished silver-framed photograph of her parents from atop her school trunk and flung it at the wall with all the force she could summon, denting Daphne’s pastel coloured wallpaper.

“I hate you,” she cried.

It was their fault. The blood they had passed on to Astoria was poisoned. But the beliefs they had instilled into her and her sister were far worse. 

#  # #

Hermione sat cross-legged on her sofa, rifling through one of the thick tomes Severus had brought with him. Their reheated take-out dinner was  nearly two hours ago and in the meantime he had explained to her the break-through he had come up with in terms of finding a weapon that could be used against Umbra.

“It says right here,” she said. “An Obscurus can be considered the polar opposite of the Patronus charm.”

He nodded once, looking pensive, one finger briefly tracing over his upper lip. “The problem is that wizards and witches cannot produce an Obscurus because we are using our magic. An Obscurus is an uncontrollable dark force resulting from suppressed magic that occurs in the so-named Obscurials. The host, for lack of a better term, exerts no command over the Obscurus not until they fully transform into it, at which point the two become inseparable.”

“Not to mention the fact that Obscurials are generally children whose magic has been stamped down,” she added with a shudder. “So summoning an Obscurus is out of the question. Then what else can be a perfect antagonist to the Patronus?”

“An _A_ _dversus_ ,” he replied in a low voice, steepling his hands in front of his face. “The Patronus is a protector. Its opposite is a harmer, an attacker.”

Hermione shut down the book on her lap with a definitive thud that briefly distracted Crookshanks who was sleeping curled at her side. “ Some might say your worst enemy is yourself,” she answered wryly. “If you can summon a protector from a happy memory, then it stands to reason you should be able to summon a n aggressor from a dreadful one.”  She was about to wonder whether what sounded  feasible in theory could work out in reality, when she recalled he had already invented several powerful spells and curses by age sixteen. “ You’ve already created the charm, haven’t you?”

He looked smug and stood with deliberate moves  then took a few steps back before taking out his wand. He  s wished it through the air as if to conjure a Patronus but at the end he swirled it above his head in a move imitating that of a tornado. “ Expecto Adversum,” he demanded soberly.  A tar black whirlwind of a cloud burst from the tip of the wand. It was small at  first , no taller than a tea kettle but then it grew, stretching towards the ceiling like a dark, noxious weed.  Onyx like tendrils licked at the plaster, whirling into the air, until they  merged together and the whirlwind took on a human face. Hermione yelped seeing Harry’s  likeness form out of black smoke until she realised that it wasn’t her friend.  It could only be James Potter, Harry’s father. 

T he Adversum with the disturbing face of her friend propelled itself towards her but it left her untouched instead flitting like windswept cloud towards the window and dematerializing into nothingness against the glass.  A moment later Severus fell to his knees, as pale as he had been when she had visited him at St. Mungo’s while he had been in a coma following Nagini’s attack. His stringy hair fell into his face, his wand clutched tremulously  in a hand that smacked against his thigh. Hermione rushed to him. His breath was coming out raspy, his voice unsteady as he spoke.

“It appears that an Adversus is an energy halfway between a Patronus and an Obscurus,” he explained in his familiar teaching drone. “It can be controlled by the witch or wizard conjuring it like a Patronus but it is also parasitic in nature like an Obscurus, draining the conjurer’s magic core. Fortunately, the effect is temporary.” 

Hermione knelt by his side as he spoke. Sweat poured off his brow, running down his temples, while his lower lip trembled faintly. “What can I do?” she inquired nervously “How can I help you?”

“I shall recover momentarily,” he said, his voice already sounding more like its silky self.

“Do you need anything? Chocolate? Endorphins?” she asked with a grin.

His lips quirked upwards, as Hermione’s arm went around his shoulders. “Come on, you need to lie down.”

His knuckles were chalky as he gripped his wand like a lifeline when she helped him heave himself up with  a rough inhale of breath. He staggered on his way up and leaned on her for a moment. He was heavy, almost too heavy, and her knees buckled, while the arm that had gone around his middle tightened its grip on him reflexively.  Then his weight was off her, her hold merely decorative, as he lurched towards the sofa where he sat rather than lay down. He leaned back with his eyes closed for a few instants and Hermione suspected he was fighting off a bout of nausea. 

Hermione jogged to the kitchen to fill a glass with water and retrieve her chocolate supply. She had no idea whether it would help like with Dementors but she figured he could with a bit of sugary goodness. When she came back into the living room, his eyes were wide open but he still had his death grip on his wand.  It occurred to  her that for the longest time, his whole life  actually , he had nothing and nobody to  rely on but his magic,  his only respite and his only  guardian. Her heart began to hammer painfully in her chest. 

“You tested the Adversus charm on yourself… by yourself?” she said, not really asking a question. 

“I have tested all the spells I have created on myself,” he pointed out smoothly. 

S he remembered what Sectumsempra did and shuddered. “Have some water,” she murmured stretching out the glass. 

He shook his head, refusing her. “Surely you have realised by now the main problem with this charm,  even  if it does  indeed prove effective against Umbra.”

She set the glass on the coffee table next to him just in case and opened box of Chocolate Cauldrons. “You only get one strike then you’re more vulnerable than ever.” She sat by his side. Crooks, who had been apparently biding his time, sprang up and wedged himself between them. He gave Severus a questioning look just as the wizard was putting away his wand. Hermione  placed a hand on her cat’s back settling him down before he could jump on Severus’ lap. Crooks  did so with a low-pitched, disgruntled growl.  She imagined she would get much of the same reaction if she tried the same with Snape. 

“The Adversus charm is a last resort solution for when all others are exhausted. If at all possible, an alternative must be devised.”

Hermione held out a Chocolate Cauldron to him. “ It’s filled with firewhiskey, you know,” she said with a wink. “And it’s a cauldron… made of chocolate… it seems apropos for a potion-maker.” She sighed. “Take it, I promise it doesn’t bite.”

“I know what Chocolate Cauldrons are,” he said in a spiffy manner, his right eye-brow raising dangerously. He took the candy from her and began to unwrap it as fastidiously as humanly possible.

Hermione ripped off the packaging of  a  Cauldron of her own and popped it into her mouth, thinking as she chewed. “ As I can attest from personal experience, Umbra seems to be repelled by being forced to experience a human’s emotional distress. We need to create a spell that would make it feel grief and mental pain as if it were its own.”

“An emotional version of the Cruciatus then,” he concluded. His voice had recovered its bite, though he still looked ghostly white. “What a momentous occasion this must be! I am glad I was here to witness it for myself as Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor Princess, a member of the Golden Trio itself, and an icon of goodness and light, proposed to develop a curse on par with the Unforgivables together with a dark wizard.”

“Use of the Dark Arts as a whole is not illegal,” she tossed back nonchalantly, opening a second Cauldron. “Neither are spells and curses that haven’t been invented yet. Besides, if we are caught, you can always blame it on your comely young wife who seduced you and lead you astray.” She froze with the chocolate halfway to her mouth. He was gaping at her with his lips slightly parted, an expression of naked shock plastered onto his visage. Hermione started laughing. “The look on your face,” she wheezed out amid chortles. She pointed a finger at him. “You should see yourself.” 

“According to today’s Daily Prophet, it is I who exerts a nefarious influence on you,” he sniped dryly. 

H ermione wiped out a tear that had leaked out of the corner of one eye amongst her giggles. “Oh yeah! The new Azkaban law can’ t be about  wanting to do away with the inhuman  prison conditions. Or the fact that  it’s insane that we still employ the same guards who defected to Voldemort the first chance they  had .  No, I must be brainwashed by my former Death Eater husband to see the prisoners of Azkaban as something other than meat for the Dementors.”

“At what point does it become exhausting, saving the world?”

“You tell me. You’ve been doing it far longer than I have.” 

H e looked  away , clearly discomfited by something he had perceived in her gaze. “Fear,” he whispered softly after a pause.

“What?”

“We need not induce emotional distress into Umbra but fear. Fear is subtle, insidious. It takes root deep within the soul and grows like a weed. Left unattended, it would smother the entire garden. This is how the Dark Lord got so far. He instilled fear in his followers. He instilled fear in his foes. Above all, he instilled fear in a great number of witches and wizards who were too paralysed by it to oppose him.” 

S he smiled, impressed once again by his brilliance. “So how do we put the fear of ourselves in a dark creature from another world?” 

“ _That_ is a discussion best had some other time. Tomorrow you must return to the Ministry for another day of being vilified for your noble intentions.”

Unbidden a yawn came over her. She covered it with a hand. “I’ve been meaning to ask you for pointers in dealing with that  actually . You are the defending world champion, after all.” 

He almost showed a flash of teeth with his smile. “Ah! So your true reasons emerge at last. You mean to snatch that championship from me, do you not?” 

Hermione  chuckled then  leaned over, mindful of her cat between them, and pecked him on his curving lips. “ You can sleep here, if you want,” she said in a carefully neuter tone as she drew back. 

“Hermione, you are clearly exhausted and I am still magically depleted.” 

That worried her a little. She nibbled on her lower lip before voicing her question: “How long does it take for you to recover after casting an Adversus?”

“I have yet to test for all mitigating conditions but roughly an hour. I suspect it might vary from person to person, depending on magical ability, power and state of health.”

She nodded. “I guess we’ll know more once I learn to cast it, too.  And I did mean just to sleep… earlier… you know…. When I asked you to stay.”

“All right,” he said quietly. 

She sprang to her feet,  grabbing another Chocolate Cauldron on her way. “Do you think you can stand on your own now? I want to show you where everything is.” 

# # #

Pleading was an odd look on Draco, unnatural. Astoria had been taught a bit of Occlumency as a  child , as many of  the  noble, pure-blood families did, but she had never been any good  at it. She pushed whatever frail walls she possessed  upfront, forcing herself to appear made of stone as she stared at Draco over a table in the White Wyvern pub. She had thought it best to do it in public and avoid the worst of a possible scene.

“I don’t understand,” Draco said dully. “I thought everything was fine. Is is something I did?” He paused, casting her a chagrined look. “This wouldn’t be about what happened the last time we met in the Forbidden Forest, would it? Because I am sorry, Astoria, I really didn’t want you to think I’m pressuring you into something. I just got carried away. It will never happen again, I promise you.”

Astoria wrapped her fingers around the stem of her  glass of nettle wine. She believed him. He had stopped immediately when asked and apologised profusely.  The incident did provide her with an excuse, though. “It got me thinking,” she said, choosing her words cautiously. Draco was a Slytherin, too. He might see through her facade if she wasn’t careful. “You clearly desire things I am not prepared for… things like marriage. I am only seventeen, Draco, I still go to Hogwarts. I wish to have my fun.”

He laid a warm, gentle hand over her left one. She pulled away as if his touch burnt her. In truth it very nearly felt like it did.

“Astoria,” he said. “I have no intention of rushing you into anything, be it marriage or sleeping with me. We can move along at whichever pace suits you best. As for what occurred in the forest, you are so beautiful… I stopped thinking for a few moments… my hands just seemed to taken on a mind of their own. Again I am deeply sorry. I would never do anything against your honour.”

T his was torture! She needed to put an end to it.  She forced herself to look stern but was unsure if she succeeded. He looked so genuinely contrite, eager to make amends for his imagined fault.

“I just don’t love you, Draco,” she snapped, aiming for coldness.

Judging for the stricken look on his face, she had succeeded in projecting just that.  H e  glanced away briefly and his familiar, beloved features  solidified into a grimly firm expression. “I do,” he whispered fervently, leaning towards her across the table. “This is not how I envisaged telling  you but I love you. I have for a quite a while now. Please, give me chance to win your affections. Don’t reject me just yet. Please.”

She faked an exasperated look.  “ I have grown weary of this relationship,”  she said with a tired sigh. 

He sat back in his chair, his pale  grey  eyes turning  to the frost of steel . “ Why are you doing this, Astoria?” 

She could hear the anger shimmering just beneath his deceptively cool tone. “ I have told you.  You may love me but I hold you in no such regard. Now don’t beg. It’s unbecoming.  No man has ever impressed a woman in Slytherin by grovelling.” 

He was on his feet in an instant, the fury now manifest in his face. “I am sorry for taking so much of your precious time, Miss Greengrass,”  he said, tossing each word at her like a chip of ice. “ I will inopportune you no longer. Good day to you!”

He slammed a few sickles  on the bar on his way out then stalked to the exit, slamming the door shut after himself. Astoria winced, feeling the impact in the marrow of her bones. 

TBC


	30. Pity the Living

Doubled over as if in pain, Draco Malfoy vomited noisily next to the snow tinged hedge looping around his family’s sumptuous and newly redecorated manor. Said residence loomed over him with its glittering windows, delicate music fluttering from the ancient walls as the Malfoy Christmas party was in full swing inside.

“Sobering Up Potion exists,” commented Pansy tartly and vanished the sick with a careless flick of her wand.

“I don’t want to sober up,” muttered Draco and whipped a monogrammed handkerchief over his sweaty forehead.

“What did you do, mate?” Blaise Zambini wanted to know.

Draco shot him a filthy look. “What makes you think I did something?”

“Because everybody always knew you were going to muck up this thing with Astoria,” piped in Theodore Nott unhelpfully. “And nobody ever bet that it would be her fault. I mean, we know each other since you were children and well, you’re… you and she is… her and….”

“What, Theo here, is trying to point out with his usual eloquence is that it was never going to be her,” grumbled Pansy. “She is too much of a pure, sweet soul to ruin anything. In fact, she’s far better than you deserve.”

Draco straightened himself up. A peacock cried out somewhere on the grounds. The frigid air had already begun to sober him up much to his displeasure. “Well, she happens to agree.”

Pansy stuck her wandlight into his eyes, making him wince. “Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself, Malfoy. Pick up some flowers and an expensive present and go grovel. We’ve just discussed Astoria’s beatific nature. She might be inclined to forgive you.”

Draco shook his head ruefully. “I doubt it.”

“What did you even do?” asked Nott, sounding morbidly curious.

Draco stared resolutely at the patch of moonlit snow stretching in front of his feet. “Nothing,” he replied surly. “One moment everything was fine and the other…. She said she doesn’t love me. I guess that’s it then. I mean… what can you do?”

“Slip her a few drops of Amortentia?” suggested Zambini only half-seriously.

“Beatific or not, Astoria is still one of us,” pointed out Pansy. “If he does that, she’ll castrate him with a blunt, rusty instrument.”

Zambini patted Draco on one shoulder. “Congratulations, Draco! You have never been more one of us than you are now. Nobody is a true Slytherin until loving without a hope.”

“Explain your mother then,” said Nott.

Blaise just shrugged. “ Maybe that’s why she left you, Draco,” offered Zambini. “Her  parents are already Death Eaters. I t wouldn’t do for her to marry one as well. No Gryffindor would associate with her.  No  Ravenclaw,  either, but she might be able to ensnare a hapless Huffpuff.”

“That’s ridiculous, Blaise,” snapped Pansy with surprising heat. “The war’s over!”

“Then why isn’t there a single person who isn’t in Slytherin in there?” inquired Nott, inching his head towards the mansion.

“Need I remind you that Hermione Granger herself married our former head of house?” mumbled Pansy acidly. 

Draco was only half listening. If what Blaise had said was true and it did make a lot of sense then why hadn’t Astoria told him as much? He would have understood! Her standing had to worse than ever after she had started with him. Furthermore, even his parents rejected her. They couldn’t even show up together in public, for crying out loud!

“Granger only married Professor Snape because she got in trouble that one time. Everyone knows it’s just an arrangement,” Blaise was saying once Draco began paying attention again. 

“So what?” Pansy apparently would not be deterred. “Witches and wizards have arranged marriages all the time.”

“ _Purebloods_ have arranged marriages all the time,” interjected Draco sullenly. “Granger is muggle-born and fought this thing with all her might, which is saying something. Anyway, my parents helped Professor Snape with the contract so I overhead them discussing it a few times. Blaise’s right, Pansy. This is just a business transaction. There’s an annulment clause in that contract. It’ll be over before long.” 

Pansy lowered her lit wand but the silvery moonlight still showed enough of her profile for Draco to discern a measure of grimness in her features. What was it to her if everyone but their own rejected them? It was hardly new and after the  last war, not at all su r prising. 

“Besides,” added Nott. “Granger isn’t here tonight. Professor Snape came alone… just as Granger went to the Ministry gala on Ronald Weasley’s arm.”

Pansy’s head snapped up at that. “I thought she and Weasley were over ages ago.”

“Maybe they took it back up,” said Draco nastily, envious, despite himself, of the apparent happiness in the Gryffindor camp. “now that she’ll soon be free of her evil, decrepit Slytherin husband. If you are all so fond of gambling, why don’t you bet that she’s spending Christmas with Weasley right now? I, for one, would lay down a million galleons without hesitation.”

“Professor Snape is not old,” protested Nott. “So what if Granger is younger than him? My mother was much younger than my father. It’s not that uncommon.”

“Among _purebloods_ ,” stressed Zambini. “Granger’s muggle-born and Muggles age much faster than us. Professor Snape, who turns 40 in January, must be ancient by her standards.” 

An ugly grimace twisted Pansy’s visage before she turned away from Blaise and Theodore’s sniggers. Draco didn’t feel like laughing himself. He looked at the brightly lit windows of his childhood home wondering if his parents knew that all the glitz and glamour they were putting out could ill cover up the fact that they were all a dying breed.

“I’m cold,” said Pansy all of the sudden. “I’m going inside.”

She turned and stalked away briskly without waiting for a reply, the sound of her steps sharp like a crack as the thin layer of frozen snow broke under her heavy steps. The peacock cried out again and the sound came out truly spooky as it reverberated against the night air. Draco shuddered, wondering why they were still doing it all, why they were still keeping up the appearances, putting themselves through the agony of delaying the inevitable. Dimly he realised he had sobered up, despite his best intentions. 

“Pansy, wait up,” he called out. He waved to Blaise and Theodore. “What do you say we grab a few bottles of Ogden’s finest from the ball? I doubt they’ll miss them with all that waltzing going on. And have our own private party in the orangerie.” 

Blaise and Theodore grinned. Even Pansy, who had turned to look at them, seemed interested. “Now you’re talking, Malfoy!”

# # #

Severus Snape stepped from behind the hedge and looked after the four young people jogging back to the manor. Lucius was sure to be displeased about this just as he had been displeased about Draco getting so drunk he could barely stand early in the festivities. He took out a pack of cigarettes, marvelling at how often he had indulged in the habit since starting to sleep with his wife, removed one and lit it up with a match, which he preferred to his wand. He inhaled the smoke hungrily, letting it fill his lungs.

He hadn’t meant to spy on his former students’ discussion. Finery and abundance still chafed at him even after all these years, alien to the boy who had grown up in the last house on Spinner’s End, and the atmosphere at the party had rapidly grown suffocating. Narcissa and Lucius had truly outdone themselves. However, there was an obvious note of falsity about the proceedings. What was left of the old pure-blood society had crowded in the Malfoys’ ballroom with all their splendour on display yet it was obvious they were all trying too hard, pretending nothing had changed, acting as though so many of them weren’t dead or in Azkaban. The press had shunned them completely. Even Rita Skeeter was above attending a ball thrown by Death Eaters. What had clearly been intended as a show of opulence was turning out rather sad, the smiles faker and faker as the evening progressed, the dancing couples few and rather unenthusiastic, and the alcohol flowing far too freely. Draco wouldn’t be the only one thoroughly intoxicated by the end of the night. 

He also knew  that Hermione was indeed spending Christmas with the Weasleys and the real reason why she wasn’t here tonight. A fleeting image of Hermione walking on his arm through Diagon Alley passed through his mind and he banished it as quickly as it came.  The two of them could never set foot anywhere well lit. Even as everyone thought, if not acknowledged,  that their marriage as an empty arrangement, she was suspected of being negatively influenced by him. He had no doubt fears of the Gryffindor princess being tainted by him abounded, not that they were entirely unfounded. Hermione would never set foot in his world for a myriad of reasons, some of them justified. And he would never be welcome d in hers. He hadn’t been welcomed in it since the moment he had announced on the train to Hogwarts at age eleven that he wanted to be in Slytheri n. It didn’t matter how often Potter tried to induct him into it. Potter was naive.  Severus would never be one of them. 

W hen Severus had been in his seventh year, a mousy-looking Ravenclaw who wasn’t doing  as well in school as the rest of her house had approached him, promising to let him touch her  anywhere he liked if he brewed her N.E.W.T.s potion samples. He had been furious, of course, and blunt in his refusal, which had  enraged her  in turn .  So she had yelled at him:

_ As if any girl would let  _ you _touch her out of her own free will! _

O ne day Hermione would wake up and realise  she was sleeping next  to  the ugly, greasy bat her whole  school used to despise, her ill-fated crush on him having run its inevitable course. Or maybe the judgement of her peers would become too much. Or maybe she’ d see a few grey hairs in his for now still black, oily locks. Or maybe  and more likely, he would say the wrong thing, which wasn’t hard.  He had always had trouble s aying the right thing.  And then it would be over. He knew how this conversation would start. He had had it before. 

_I’ve made excuses for you for years…._

He tossed his cigarette in the snow and crushed it under one foot.  Malfoy Manor loomed over him twinkling with light and manufactured joy. 

#  # #

Maybe Snape would have been out of place at the Burrow before the war but Hermione wasn’t certain that was true any more. The Christmas holidays had turned into a reunion of sorts. Harry brought Dudley who was fast requisitioned by Mr. Weasley for a holiday long quiz on all things Muggle, and Andromeda and Ted Tonks with their grandson, Teddy.  George came with Angelina who brought along Katie Bell, while Percy was accompanied by his new girlfriend, Audrey. Neville arrived, too, and he and Luna took turns avoiding each other, their break-up too recent and raw. Then it was, of course, the rest of the Weasley children: Ginny, fresh from Holyhead, where she played for their famous all-witch Quidditch team, Charlie, fresh from Romania, and, of course, Bill and Fleur. 

I t was overcrowded naturally, and still chaotically cheerful but every now and then an awkward silence would befall them all. Gaze s would be lowered and the random muffled sob could be heard from either Mrs. Weasley or Andromeda. The absences were glaring. George seemed to be regressing to his habit of looking around for Fred’s reaction. Ted would say something about what Tonks used to do and then it became obvious all over again that her and Lupin’s son was now an orphan. Somebody even mentioned Moody at some point. The silences grew longer and more oppressive day by day.

On Christmas Eve, Hermione, Ginny and Luna, who all shared Ron’s sister’s old room, had barely slept a wink. At some point Ginny cried and Hermione and Luna held her. Then Hermione cried and Ginny and Luna held her.  Then Luna said something bizarre and inappropriate about Lavender Brown and Ginny and Hermione held her. Hermione wished she had made more of effort to be close to Lavender or that she had been less mean to her when jealous of her and Ron’s relationship. Lavender had been unrecognizable after the final battle and her parents’ dull, ashen faces at the funeral haunted Hermione’s nightmares.  What were they doing this Christmas, she wondered dimly.

C hristmas Day was eventful if not entirely jolly. They went to bed after a long, protracted dinner of turkey, roast potatoes, mince pies, treacle tarts, and flaming figgy pudding watered by many goblets of the delicious elderflower wine Katie had brought along in abundance.  After imbibing everyone had slept better and spent the following day mostly lazily lounging around. Hermione had offered to help Molly and Andromeda in the kitchen  only to be turned down  gently.

I n wee hours of the morning  on Boxing Day , while it was still dark outside, Hermione slipped out of Ginny’s room quietly, clutching her beaded purse. Luna and Ginny  were still asleep.  She sneaked out of the house and Disapparated from the garden. She reappeared in front of her parents’ home which she kept just as they had left it, careful to drop by every now and then to clean it by magic. She refused to entertain the idea they were not returning to it.  Now she mostly felt guilt, however. Her parents were alive and well somewhere in the world, even though she didn’t know where. She imagined the Weasleys, Andromeda and Ted Tonks and their grandson, and Lavender’s parents would give anything for their loved ones to be still living somewhere, even if they had no idea where. 

S he removed the wards she placed around the place to avoid burglary and slid inside with a heavy heart. She regretted every Christmas she had spent at Hogwarts or with the Order of the Phoenix. She felt as though she had left her parents behind once she had stepped into the wizarding world. She sat on the sofa and stared at the blind TV screen, replaying their last words to her in her mind. She was afraid she starting to forget them, letting go of her mother’s warm smile and  of her father’s voice. 

_ Obliviate…. _

What kind of daughter did what she had even for a good reason? She had gone back after them to Australia after the war but  a year had already gone by, and Wendell and Monica Wilkins had moved without a forwarding address. She had been searching for them ever since but hope dwindled every day. The Muggle world was immense. They could be anywhere. 

She buried her face in one of the sofa cushions and let the tears fall, crying and crying until her head hurt and she grew breathless. Then she got up, dried her face and went out again. 

She Apparated to Spinner’s End and knocked on the door, knowing it wasn’t likely that she was waking him up. It was close to the dawn but Cokeworth was enveloped in a livid mist that further muddled the shadows of the fading night. The mill tower loomed over the small town  like an extinguished beacon . She could hear the harsh whisper of the river close by but other than  that it was quiet. 

S everus opened the door dressed in black trousers and one of his long, white shirts. His hair was falling in his face, as spindly and as greasy as ever. The familiar onyx eyes glinted from the deep, dark shadows surrounding them. Apparently the holidays worsened his insomnia, too. 

“Good morning,” he said blandly and admitted her in.

“Merry Christmas,” she said with false cheer.

He bristled and locked the door. Hermione tossed her purse and thick winter coat on his couch carelessly then sauntered back to him. Linking her arms around his head, she pulled him down for a hungry kiss. He gasped softly and kissed back after only a short moment of hesitation. “Make me forget,” Hermione whispered fervently against his lips. She was only half aware of what she meant by the request but she remembered clearly how she could lose herself in his embrace, how he had the power to break her apart and put her back together again.

He stared  at  her with unreadable, dark eyes that mimicked unlit tunnels to perfection, his mouth forming a tight line. Then his hands began to wonder lazily over her jumper. He inclined his head to run his lips over the column of her throat. Hermione twisted the  fingers of her right hand in  the inky black of his hair at his nape and yanked his head back with force. He bore a questing, puzzled expression that was unlike him, when he looked at her again. She dug her gaze into his own. Her breath was  laboured in her own ears, and she had the distinct impression that she was trembling  couldn’t be sure.

“Like that night,” she rasped, aiming for firmness, fighting to raise her voice over the storm raging within her, threatening to choke her. She still had no idea what had set him off on the day she was alluding to but she suspected she knew what he might have been feeling. “After… you disappeared in the middle of lunch and didn’t come back until the evening….”

His expression grew taught and grim, his jaw clenching visibly, and for an instant she thought he might refuse. It infuriated her. It wasn’t fair. She had let him use her body and mind to exorcise whatever demons had haunted him that day. Why couldn’t he do the same for her? She felt so cold but it didn’t come from chilled air of the December dawn. It was as if death  itself  had slithered under her skin filling her veins with ice.  And she yearned to feel life and warmth.

His hands reached out, pale and long-fingered and skeletal, and he pushed her backwards. She staggered and went along willingly until the back of her legs hit the sofa. His coal black eyes were glinting madly, his face looking as though carved from the coolest of white marbles. She sank down on the couch when he pressed on her shoulders, fingers digging into her flesh mercilessly even through her jumper. He grasped her chin between an index and a thumb, squeezing to the point of pain, forcing her to meet his gaze unnecessarily. She lowered the Occlumency walls he had helped her build. 

T he electric torrent of his powerhouse mind ripped through her head, tearing through memory after memory and thought after thought in an aimless search for nothing. He lingered here and there on her recollection of them in bed. She caught snatches from him, too, and they  baffled her. He was the Legilimens, not her. Why was he broadcasting so much? Weren’t his  own formidable  walls up?  She caught glimpses of guilt, sorrow and regret. She was practically bathed in them as he viewed that early morning when she had lost her virginity to him from her perspective, feeling her pain and confusion.  Disgust… so much disgust…  and it wasn’t hers…. 

He delved further until he came across her with her wand pointed at her parents. 

_ Obliviate! _

The memory  wavered . Once. Twice. Then became muddy and slipped like water through her fingers. Flashes of images bombarded her mind: smudged colours, unclear contours and diffuse sounds. The y blended together and washed over her in thick waves. She didn’t know whether they came from her or from him.  Everything was so blurry and uncertain,  and she felt like she was dissolving, unsure of her own existence, as her thoughts frayed and drifted away, spinning out of control. 

S he blinked sluggishly when she realized she was back in the sitting room at Spinner’s End and her mind was devoid of Severus’ presence. Her head still felt fuzzy, though, her temples pulsing intensely, and dizziness making her skin warm almost to the point of feverish.  He bent closer, his breath fanning her face, the smell of piquant herbs, old parchment and woodsmoke suffusing her nostrils.  She picked her up in his arms, her head cradled carefully against the hard, bony surface of his chest beneath the cotton of his shirt, and took her up the stairs to his bedroom. 

# # #

Hermione was dressing in a hurry, numb fingers drifting quickly over material, zippers and buttons, her back to her husband who was still lying in bed, naked beneath his well-worn blanket. Her movements were sluggish. She was sore all over, bitten, scratched and bruised, but her mind was silent, her thoughts and emotions no longer racing and tripping over each other in a painful whirl.  She had done her fair share of damage, too. Her nails had left bloody trails on Severus’ back, shoulders and upper arms, her chest was covered in bites as was part of his neck. The taste of blood was still on the back of her tongue.

She turned to him with a wince. His expression was dark yet somehow aloof but there was agitation in the black pits of his eyes. He stretched a slim, pale arm and cupped the side of her face with his palm, his thumb stroking cautiously at her skin. She leaned into the caress, half closing her eyes.  His lower lip would bruise where her teeth had torn in until she had tasted the  tang of his blood. 

“I need to go,” she said softly, her fingers wrapping around his wrist, one of them digging into his pulse point, feeling the rapid pumping of blood, indicating he was far more agitated than he let on. “You could come with me to the Burrow.”

He shook his head, more of his black strands falling into his sallow face, and she let it at that. She turned her face and placed a light kiss in the middle of his palm.  Then she released him.

“I almost forgot… I have a Christmas present for you.” She dashed down the stairs with as much speed as she could gather given that her legs still felt a bit unsteady and there was a dull throbbing between her legs. 

S he pulled the tiny, neatly wrapped in sparkling, silvery paper package out of her purse and used her wand to enlarge it. Snape came down the stairs. His shirt and trousers were back on but he was  still barefoot. The sight of his  white, bony toes made her smile if only a little. She stood up from the sofa and held the package out to him formally. He stared at the voluminous bundle blankly. 

“You can go ahead and take it,” she encouraged. “It hasn’t got any teeth, I promise.” 

“I have nothing for you,” he said still not touching her gift.

She just shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I gave you this on Christmas morning, either.” 

The wrapping paper crinkled as he pulled it off gingerly, an expression of extreme concentration plastered onto his face, his brow furrowed and his eyes suspicious.  Hermione wondered how long it had been since anyone had gifted him with anything that didn’t come out of obligation, like the mandatory presents in the shape of impersonal bottles of wine that graduating Slytherins had given him over the years. She desperately hoped someone had given him something from the heart at some point in his life, even if that someone was Lily. She could live with that thought a lot better than with the notion that he had never been given any  meaningful gifts. 

S everus’ hands were filled with the thick, woollen, black and white patchwork quilt  Hermione had knitted herself. The pattern was plain  as , with all the craziness at the Ministry, she had regrettably lacked the time for something more elaborate. He stared at it with wide eyes, the corners  of the blanket slipping from his hands and coiling on the floor at his feet.  There were rare, pale pink blotches high on his cheeks. 

“Thank you,” he said stiffly, uttering the words as if they were painful and without meeting her gaze. 

Hermione smiled. “You’re welcome.” She flitted to the sofa to grab her purse and coat. “I really have to go now,” she said glancing at the window above his desk that showed the bleary, whitish early morning light spreading outside. 

She pecked him briefly on a cool cheek on her way to the door.

“It’s not wrong,” he called after her. 

Hermione froze, her hand hovering in mid air, above the knob. 

“What we have just done… what you asked of me,” he continued in a voice barely above a whisper, his velvety baritone more gravely than usual. “Later, when you shall have time to think on it, you will be appalled… but it was not wrong. It was what you needed and that doesn’t make you twisted or dark. It doesn’t make you anything.”

Hermione half turned to him, some trepidation already beginning to pull at her previous lassitude. “If it’s not wrong, then why do you feel so guilty about  everything that’s happened between us?”

The flimsiest of smiles flirted with his kiss swollen lips. “It  _is_ my natural state, after all.” 

Hermione smiled back grimly. Their eyes met and she felt his touch in her mind like the hesitant paw of a small kitten. He telegraphed a frisson of desire-laced mental numbness before breaking eye contact once more. It felt reassuring. He was right that she would fret about it later but she could take away with her the fact that, no matter how hard it was to compartmentalize and categorize, what had just  transpired had very much been mutual.

TBC


	31. Hermione’s Triumphant Return to Hogwarts

Pansy whirled her wand through the air, violently ripping the door to her sister Penny’s room from its hinges. She marched in and pointed her wand at Penny menacingly.

“I know you are angry with our parents and I know you think they abandoned you and Corey with me but guess what? I am angry at them, too. Only that I have no one to take my fury out on. So get dressed before we end up caught in the last minute crowd on our way to the train!”

Penny turned blazing blue-grey eyes on her sister. “I don’t have to listen to you! You’re not Mum!”

“You want Mum?” bellowed Pansy. “Then cast the Killing Curse and put me out of my misery. Maybe they’ll put you and Mum in the same cell in Azkaban.” She flicked her wand to open Penny’s voluminous wardrobe and yanked out a black and grey plaid skirt, a charcoal jumper and a dark green winter coat, which she then flung at her sister.

“I don’t see why I have to go back,” grumbled Penny, though she did remove her bathrobe and begin to change into the Muggle clothes Pansy had thrown at her. “What good is graduating from Hogwarts going to do me? It’s not like anyone will hire a Parkinson these days.”

“Well, then I suggest you obtain an attitude adjustment and go hunt for a rich husband… though even he might want a wife who’s not completely daft,” yelled Pansy from the doorway, where she was busy setting the door back onto its hinges. “Finish dressing and grab your trunk and your owl. We’ll leaving in ten minutes.”

With that Pansy jogged to her younger brother’s room who was further down the landing. Parkinson Hall was a two hundred years old country house just outside Chelmsford and it looked no different than any other typical Regency house on the outside, though magic had done quite a few improvements on the inside. The Parkinsons were just as old of a pure-blood family as the Malfoys but they were nowhere near as rich. It wasn’t that they didn’t have money but still Pansy had to be careful with their finances to avoid exceeding their means. The war reparations her parents had had to pay had not helped, either. Furthermore, between her younger siblings and managing their house, she could hardly afford to get a job and earn some extra income. She, Daphne and Astoria had plans to open a small business together after Astoria graduated, and Pansy hoped things would pick up then. In the meantime, she still counted herself too proud to accept a loan from Daphne.

Coreopsis Parkinson, Corey for short, Pansy’s younger brother was a stodgy boy with sand blond hair Pansy had cut too short over the Christmas holiday and the same pug face that had haunted Pansy’s childhood and adolescence. She could only hope that much like her, Corey would grow out of it. Pansy breathed a sigh of relief when she found him fully dressed and just closing up his trunk.

Twenty instead of ten minutes later they were all up on their brooms and flying to Daphne and Astoria’s flat in London. Astoria was waiting for them on the empty snow-covered backyard of the elegant brownstone that house her older sister’s flat. Astoria was wrapped up in warm-looking Muggle winter clothes, her trunk and owl cage already up on a chic little trolley. Astoria was four months older than Penny and apparently, those four months made all the difference in the world. Pansy had no doubt the girl could have brought herself to Platform 9 3/4 without any problems but she had promised Daphne, who was already at work, she would take her little sister to the station, and she intended keep her word.

Astoria wanted to take the underground to the station and Pansy had had not the heart to refuse her. Of all the Slytherins Draco could have mucked up a relationship with, why did it have to be this one? Astoria looked unwell, her lips so discoloured they were almost white, and her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. Daphne had told Pansy that Astoria had cried on and off for the entire duration of the holidays but still she had refused to discuss whatever had prompted the break-up with Draco.

Penny softened considerably upon seeing Astoria and grasped her friend into a bone-crunching hug. After a good minute, Pansy had felt obligated to pull them apart. Penny was a good head taller than Astoria and built like the Quidditch beater she was. The last thing Astoria needed now was to be crushed to death.

Using Muggle transportation was a logistical nightmare and Pansy would have snapped at Daphne’s sister a few times already if it weren’t for the way her chestnut brown eyes widened in delighted curiosity. They couldn’t, of course, figure out how to get to the trains, not until a Muggle boy who could not be older than Astoria and Penny had shown them how to get and use something called tokens. He stammered a lot, blushing and staring pointedly at Astoria, as he did so. Pansy thought and then bristled at the notion that, since Astoria’s parents were not around to object, she could always go for a Muggle. It wasn’t like there were many available respectable pure-blood boys left to choose from, anyway.

Platform 9 3/4 was far more crowded than it would have been if Penny hadn’t caused them to be too late to enact Pansy’s plan of arriving too early to run into a lot of people. They received a fair share of dirty looks but nothing more serious happened, not even as they had to navigate their way around a bustling group of young Gryffindors and their parents. There were a few hissed insults about Death Eaters but that was all.

“In here… quick,” called Edmund Talkalot, the other seventh year Slytherin prefect along with Astoria, poking his head out of a car window.

Huffing a sigh of relief, Pansy grabbed Astoria’s trunk, despite her protestations, leaving the girl only with her owl cage and a carefully wrapped latest Nimbus model broomstick, and urged everyone up and into the train. Somebody Pansy couldn’t quite see helped Corey with his trunk, too, while Penny easily made her way inside, dragging her trunk as if it weighted nothing and carelessly banging it against every wall available, while her right hand clutched her Thunderbolt. Professor Snape had sent every member of Slytherin Quidditch team, including the reserves, one of those at the beginning of the school year.

Penny dumped her trunk on the floor of a half full compartment and wiped her brow unceremoniously with the back of her hand. Pansy counted herself lucky she hadn’t also spat on the floor. She turned to Astoria who was carefully stowing her broom away.

“Make sure she actually studies something this term,” she told Astoria.

“Hey,” yelped Penny.

Pansy stabbed a finger at her. “Any well-bred, rich pure-blood would be wanting a lady for a wife and you, my dear, are anything but. So unless you can find a fairy godmother to turn you into Astoria by the end of the school year, I suggest you get some half decent N.E.W.T. results.”

There were a few answering sniggers from those already seated but they died out as soon as Penny started kicking at shins. Pansy hugged Astoria, who, albeit not terribly gifted, was a good, serious student, and whispered in her ear: “Please, see that she learns something… I’m not choosy as to what exactly.”

Corey darted out of reach when Pansy tried to ruffle his hair, at least, mumbling something about friends and Exploding Snap. Already in his second year, he was feeling like a big boy and didn’t want to be seen receiving public displays of affection from his sister. Greeting the people she recognized from her own school years along the way, Pansy made her way off the train. On the stairs she caught a glimpse of a funny spectacle towards the scarlet engine at the front of the Hogwarts Express. A mass of students and parents were crowding in on three familiar figures: two in robes—Harry Potter and Ron Weasley—and Hermione Granger in Muggle garb. Ron was leaning towards Granger, giving her a one-armed hug and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

Pansy jumped off and took a few, angry steps away from the train, the heels of her short Muggle boots clacking. Suddenly she remembered she would not back down from a chipmunk like Granger. She pulled her pale pink knitted bonnet over her eyes and lowered her gaze, slinking through the crowd until she could hide behind one of the brick pillars littering the platform. She knew that only one of the Golden Trio would be getting on the train today, as Granger had been invited to hold a short series of lectures at Hogwarts. The Chosen One and his side-kick were staying in London where they were training to become Aurors. She scoffed, as shame laced through her. _Stupid_ , she thought. _You’ve been so stupid, Pansy Parkinson! A Weasley and a future Auror! What a joke! What were you expecting it would happen?_

# # #

Ron knew it was Confundus charm. One moment he had been walking out of King’s Cross with Harry, laughing and joking about what Ron had dubbed that morning to be Hermione’s triumphant return to Hogwarts, the next he found himself ambling into an empty alleyway by the looming body of the station. But who had cast it? He had his wand out in an instant. There was a figure towards the end of the alley—shorter than him and on the side of willowy. It was starting to snow, large, fluffy flakes wafting into the grey, dreary January air. The woman turned around.

“Pansy?” Ron said, more confused than when the charm had left him.

“Expelliarmus,” she shouted, knocking the wand out of his hand, and lunging for him.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” he asked as she jammed the tip of her wand into his jugular.

“Has nobody warned it’s not safe to toy with a girl from Slytherin, Weasley?” she retorted, tight-lipped. She was livid with anger, her eyes wider than ever, and incredibly beautiful, the lean, chocolate brown tresses that had escaped her bonnet cascading along her face, and her plumper lower lip jutting out.

“What are you talking about?” he inquired, making no move to defend himself, though by now her wand was painfully pressed against his throat. He was just too bewildered for any other kind of reaction.

She stepped close enough to him that her body brushed his. She was wearing perfume: coriander, cinnamon, jasmine and, maybe, tuberoses. “You and Granger. It wasn’t enough that you two went to the Ministry Christmas Gala together, you had to show up with public displays of affection here as well!”

Ron could have laughed, he was so relieved, but the forbidding look in his eyes held him back. “That’s it? Hermione and I went to the gala together as friends. We had a plan to get away early, those things are always so stuffy and boring and everyone wants a piece of the famed Golden Trio….”

The pressure of the wand at his throat lessened somewhat. “Friends? You’ll have me believe you and Granger are just friends?”

“What do you care?” he challenged.

Her eyes narrowed. “I just think it’s disgusting. She’s a married woman. You, Gryffindors, go on and on about your high moral values but you have no shame. You’re just a bunch of hypocrites.”

“If this is about Gryffindor morals and Hermione’s marriage, then why did you want to know what she was doing with me?”

Pansy lowered her wand and stepped back a tad. “Don’t flatter yourself, Weasley!”

“Let’s not forget who accosted who, Pansy,” he shot back, rubbing at the side of his throat gingerly. “And for the umpteenth time, Hermione is my best friend, same as Harry. Do you think I would have tried to see if I could work something with Parvati less than two months ago, if I was still hung up on Hermione?”

A wide set of hazel green eyes were glaring daggers at him. Cursed daggers, by the look of it. “I don’t know. Would you have, Weasley?”

He darted towards her, wrapping an arm securely around her waist. “I thought I told you to call me Ron.” He bent his head and kissed her hard on those temping cold bitten lips.

She didn’t kiss back, instead stiffening against him and wrenching her mouth away. Her right hand came up, devoid of wand, and slashed through the air towards him but this time Ron was faster and captured her wrist securely between his fingers. A moment later he let her go.

“Kiss me or curse me, but make up your blood mind already.”

Her cold hands grasped him by the ends of the wool scarf wrapped around his neck and pulled him to her. Their lips were half parted when they met in a snow melting, torrid kiss. Pansy kissed like she fought: aggressively yet with undeniable, consuming passion. Ron’s blood roared into his ears, and he wrapped his arms around her fully, pressing himself to her shorter form. As they sought and devoured each other, he could swear he felt the earth move.

“Oi, get a hotel room!”

They broke apart as someone shouted at them from the mouth of the alley. Pansy only chuckled.

“Stop laughing and help me find my wand,” Ron muttered, not quite letting of her. “You, Slytherin girls, are something else.”

She thumped a finger against his cheek. “If I catch you looking at any Slytherin girl other than me, I’ll gouge your eyes out… Ron.”

# # #

Hermione had little time for nostalgia on the Hogwarts Express. Professor Flitwick, who insisted she should call him Filius, and Professor Vectra, who insisted Hermione should call her Septima, commandeered her to the professor’s compartment right next to the one reserved for prefects. There she met the new Muggle Studies professor, an elderly, portly, former Ministry employee by the name of Aurelius Borin. She was grateful for Neville’s presence there, too, as he had started his apprenticeship with Professor Sprout that school year. It was good to have at least one member of the old gang with her, especially as Borin quickly turned into an annoyance with his insistence on asking her an uncomfortable number of questions about Harry, whom he kept calling the Chosen One.

When after about two hours, she excused herself to visit the facilities, she all but ran into two Slytherin boys with shiny prefect badges. They hurried to step aside immediately.

“Ma’am,” they said at the same time politely and inclined their heads.

They were older, obviously sixth and seventh years, and though their faces—one dark-skinned, the other Nordic in features—were vaguely familiar, Hermione had no idea what their names were. It was strange, though, to be met with such deference from Slytherins, given her experiences with Draco and his cohorts, and she wondered if it was due to the fact that she was married to their former Head of House.

Hogwarts was just as magnificent as she remembered it, all traces of war obliterated, as the castle overlooked its vast grounds and frozen Black Lake, from underneath a thick blanket of snow. It was colder in Scotland than in London and the familiar prickle of the Scottish winter nearly brought tears to Hermione’s eyes, as memories swelled within her. Some were happy but many were tinged with pain. She and Neville stopped by the war memorial before anything else and observed a moment of silence without any prior agreement to do so. Then, just as silently, they trudged to the school.

Hagrid was waiting for them in the Entrance Hall, and he caught Hermione in a bear hug the second he laid eyes on her.

“Hermione, I misse’ yeh….” There were tears in his voice and Hermione did cry a bit as she returned his embrace. She felt a pang at the lack of Harry and Ron at her side.

“Oh, hello there, Neville,” said Hagrid once he finally released Hermione, and slapped Neville amicably on his back. Neville wavered but managed to maintain his balance.

“Yeh’re sittin’ at the staff table with the professors now,” beamed Hagrid proudly at them.

A knot of mixed emotions blossomed within Hermione when she walked past the familiar Gryffindor table to the front of the Hall. It felt unnatural not to sit there. She recognized everyone except the first and second year students and answered their waves and greetings with a smile.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Neville whispered to her furtively. “Not sitting here with the rest of them.”

“Do you think you’ll ever get used to it?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” replied Neville with an air of utter sincerity, gazing back at the Gryffindor table longingly.

The staff table was its own can of worms. It was strange to see Minerva Mcgonagall in Dumbledore’s seat, stranger still to view the former, much beloved Headmaster in anything but an adoring light. The Dumbledore of Severus’ memories flashed through her mind and for one horrible moment she was glad he wasn’t there because she was certain she would not have been able to hold her temper around him. Aurora Sinistra, the new Head of Gryffindor House, occupied Minerva’s chair, as she was Deputy Headmistress now, and she quickly invited Hermione to sit at her side, which placed her next to Horace Slughorn. It was then that Hermione realised who else was missing. A thrill singed through her at the memory of their heated goodbye the night before in her London flat.

Mcgonagall welcomed everyone back and wished them an auspicious term in a few, utterly conservative words that bore no reminder of Dumbledore’s kooky style but instead reflected the no-nonsense one of the Headmistress. Slughorn wasted no time in inviting Hermione to the next meeting of his club, his eyes twinkling and his manner as cheerfully friendly as alwaywas. As Hermione felt obligated to reply in the affirmative out of sheer politeness if nothing else, she had the distinct impression she was being watched. Her gaze swept over the hall, her pulse quickening at the sight of the floating candles and of the ceiling bewitched to reflect the heavy snow clouds of the outside winter skies.

Three tables were as loud and as animated as she recalled. Only the Slytherins were oddly quiet, most of them staring at in her direction intently. At first, Hermione imagined they were looking at their Head of House sitting next to her but after a while, she realised it was her they were eyeing. She recognized Astoria among them, dressed in impeccable Hogwarts robes with Slytherin insignia, and an immaculate prefect badge pinned to her chest. She was sat between the dark-skinned prefect boy Hermione remembered from the train, and a heavy-set girl with shoulder-long, straight jet black hair. The three of them were not watching Hermione but instead quietly chatting amongst each other.

# # #

After dinner, the Headmistress herself lead Hermione to the guest quarters on the sixth floor. Though she comprehended that would not be possible, Hermione’s wistful good mood was still slightly dampened by the fact that she would not be sleeping in the Gryffindor Tower. Hermione’s new rooms were comfortable-looking with wood panelling obscuring most of the castle stone, a medium sized bedroom with a four-poster bed and a wide, nearly floor to ceiling window, a small adjacent study with two, overly full book shelves that delighted her immediately, her own bathroom and even a kitchenette.

“We will discuss more of your lessons plan in the morning,” said Mcgonagall. “though almost everything has already been settled through the letters we exchanged over the holidays. You are expected to impart the practical way in which your studies at Hogwarts have aided you during the war and with your job at the Ministry. If you need any help at all, my door is always open, which is why I am letting you know that the password is _metamorphosis_.”

“Thank you, Headmistress,” replied Hermione courteously. “It really is good to be back here.”

Mcgonagall smiled fractionally. “Please, Hermione, it is still Minerva. You are one of us now, even if you are not part of my regular staff. By the way, I feel I should remind you that as such, you are not permitted to assign detentions, deduct or award points, and give any marks. Other than that, welcome back, Hermione!”

Hermione grinned. “Thank you, it’s good to be back.”

“I shall leave to rest now. You have your first day on the other side of the classroom tomorrow.”

At the door Mcgonagall paused and then turned halfway back to Hermione. “I apologise in advance if this may come off as an inappropriate query but may I ask how Severus is?”

Hermione made to shrug, eyeing her former professor carefully. “Same as always.”

The former Transfiguration professor took a few steps back into the room. “I have been writing to him constantly but I have no way of knowing whether he read my missives or simply tossed them into the fire as they arrived. He never responded.”

“He only mentioned your letters once. From what he said, I wouldn’t hope for any sort of reply.”

The Headmistress nodded, her mouth settling in a thin, unhappy line. “Yes, he seems to wish to cut himself off from the school completely. He donated us an inordinate amount of money with no means left for me to return it. I have always suspected it was just so I would stop attempting to contact him.”

“His reasons for wanting nothing to do with Hogwarts are manifold,” said Hermione vaguely, remembering with a shudder the flashes of guilt she had perceived from Severus’ mind about Dumbledore and his own tenure as a headmaster.

“It’s not there any more… the Astronomy Tower. It has been badly damaged during the battle and I have long debated with myself whether we should rebuild it as well. Finally, the governors and I have decided to construct a separate observatory on the grounds.”

_It’s there in his mind… engraved forever_ , Hermione thought but said nothing out loud.

“Severus is not the only harbouring a significant amount of guilt for what happened during the war,” continued Minerva. “I have been thinking in the time since…. I should have known he was on our side all along. Blind faith are not words anyone would have associated with Albus Dumbledore. If he trusted him, it meant he did so with good reason. Severus is right, you know. We all readily believed he was a traitor because he wanted him to be one. We were eagerly anticipating that reveal. A Slytherin fighting on our side, it was against the natural order of things. So I never questioned it just like anyone else. Not even when I duelled him and none of his hits touched me. We shouldn’t have been able to drive him away as easily as we did but it has never even occurred to me to that that fact alone was suspicious.”

“It has never occurred to anyone,” Hermione pointed out softly, a hollow feeling carving into her chest. “Not even to me. I have always defended him when Ron and Harry would accuse him… well, when we were at Hogwarts, if Severus breathed, Ron and Harry thought he was guilty of something… anything. But when I saw him bleeding to death on the floor of the ruddy Shrieking Shack of all places, I didn’t lift a finger to help him. I thought he deserved it.”

Minerva looked to the floor briefly, paler than Hermione had ever seen her. She had the distinct impression that Headmistress was ashamed. “We all did…. I shall retire now. This is hardly the hour for such a discussion. Good night, Hermione.”

“Good night, Minerva,” replied Hermione in an uneasy whisper.

The talk with the Headmistress lingered on the edges of Hermione’s consciousness as she washed and got ready for bed. If Severus had seen her thoughts in the Shrieking Shack in her head, he had never given any indication thereof. She knew she should be practising her Occlumency exercises before falling asleep but the guilt she felt would not let her empty her mind. It was a long while before she fell asleep. When she did, she dreamt of him dying on the floor of the Shack, her fingers instead of those of Harry fighting to staunch the flow of blood but it kept running, hot and sticky against her skin, and she could not save him.

TBC


	32. Damned Spot

The large window in her bedroom afforded Hermione a spectacular view of the Hogwarts grounds: the gentle slopes slumbered beneath a duvet of thick, immaculately white snow, and beyond them stretched the silvery, frost embellished contours of the Forbidden Forest. Nestled in a corner of her viewpoint the Quidditch pitch shone with its bright colours. It wasn’t just beautiful, it was, above all, peaceful. Looking at it now, it was hard to remember how overcome with death and destruction it had all been less than two years ago.

Hermione’s thoughts wandered past the ethereal beauty of wintry Hogwarts and into a past that had been very much alive in the many dreams populating the brief instances of sleep she had gotten the night before. In her dreams the Great Hall had not been whole and alive with the light of floating candles and the laughter of children but broken down and filled with corpses. In her dreams she had seen mangled bodies and blood, and sobbed with loss and pity.

She thought of Severus and wondered where he was, if he was still at Spinner’s End or if he had returned to Prince Manor, puzzling over which option was sadder. He knew they weren’t safe, that the war had left a terrifying remnant in their world and in the world of Muggles. He knew and he was out there, scorned, suspected and hated as always, standing between them and horror. Just like he had done during the war. While she was sheltered amid the rebuilt walls of Hogwarts. It was nothing new. What was new was the knowledge that this twisted and tormented man who carried his fair share of darkness within him along with bitterness and pain and resentment, strove to rise above it and keep safe the exact same people who were too busy spitting on him. Was he safe himself, wherever he was? Did he feel alone?

She felt into her mind but in the ruined garden of dead lilies the pulsing wound of their torn bond was scabbing. She wished there was some way she could ask to have it back. Then maybe she could let him know that he was not alone, that he was being thought of, worried over, desired in so many ways. His face flashed into her mind and she wondered how she could have ever thought him ugly. His features were so striking starting with his unique, coal black eyes. Beauty standards were so dull, so common, always the same, but he was one of a kind in so many ways, inside and out.

Shaking herself out of her musings, she set onto preparing for the day, though her husband lingered on the edges of her consciousness through her every move. Her bed had been lonely without him. She pressed two fingers into a small bite mark he had left on her collarbone and felt her pulse accelerate at the memory of when and how he had put it there.

_I_ _t’s not wrong._

He was right. None of this felt even remotely wrong.

She dressed into her black pants suit she sometimes wore for her work at the Ministry. Since she wasn’t formerly a teacher here, she felt no need to wear robes. Then she put her hair in a simple, casual braid, and went to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Her mostly sleepless night made its presence known in the throbbing of her temples and the grittiness of her eyes. She wanted coffee above all else. Her head-ache only worsened when, on her way to the Hall, she ran into Borin, the new Muggle Studies teacher, who immediately set upon questioning her about her friendship with the Minister of Magic. Hermione was in no mood to talk about Kingsley, let alone reminisce about their being comrades-in-arms during the war. Politics had changed things between them. Though she could never miss the war, she had to admit there had been a clarity to it. They had all been united against the common enemy, any differences fading into the background. Peace had brought back the muddied waters, the petty intrigues and the empty rivalries smothered by the demands of the conflict. It was easy to form a united front when death stared you in the face. It was far more complicated to do so when negotiating the pitfalls of a prison reform Hermione could not seem able to bring about.

Still she made an effort to give polite, neutral responses to Borin. She was relieved when she managed to shake him off at the staff table but her relief was short-lived when Slughorn pounced on her instead with his own brand of ingratiating himself with her and her Ministry position. Despite what the Prophet wrote about her or perhaps thanks to it, she was topical. Perhaps the Muggles were right and there was no such thing as bad publicity. And she still was a member of the Golden Trio, a third of the most renown three sorcerers in the world, though it was a notoriety she could have happily done without.

“How is Severus?” Slughorn asked all of the sudden, his beady eyes twinkling, as Hermione was fixing herself a large cup of coffee.

She set the coffee mug down on the table carefully, her eyes falling unbidden to the modest sapphire wedding ring that had once belonged to Eileen Prince. “Severus is… very much himself.” She drizzled honey on her porridge, hoping that Slughorn would back off this particular line of inquiry. She didn’t want to discuss her husband in such a public setting.

“Oh, yes, well,” Slughorn replied. “He was always…. Tell me, is he conducting any sort of research? Goodness knows he doesn’t have to brew for profit now that he has come into the Prince family fortune. And he has always been so creative when it comes to potion making.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she responded, barely keeping her tone from going to clipped. “He has also always been a most private person. If he is doing research, he’s not likely to share that knowledge with anyone.” Truth be told, she had seen an inordinate amount of books about curses and blood-replinishing potions tossed on his desk and the arms of his sofa and armchair at Spinner’s End. It was a little odd, now that she thought of it. She would think he would be focusing on creating a spell that could instill fear into Umbra like they had discussed.

“That much is true,” said Slughorn, oblivious to Hermione’s reluctance to pursue this line of inquiry. “Give him my regards when you see him. I have been trying to write to him but he never gave any indication he received anything from me, not even my invitation to the Slug Club Christmas party. That shows a lack of manners that is rather unlike a Slytherin. No member of the Slug Club has ever failed to reply to my owls.”

“There is a first time for everything,” replied Hermione testily before taking a spoonful of porridge, though her appetite had evaporated. Did Slughorn really know Severus so little? She doubted her husband had ever attended any kind of formal event unless he either had an obligation or a secret agenda. Did Slughorn truly believe Severus Snape of all people would allow himself to be paraded around like a show horse for his former professor’s personal satisfaction of boasting about his students?

“Yes, well, I suppose,” went on Slughorn. “Still it is quite rude.”

“I doubt Severus’ sarcastic reply letter would have been any better,” she shot back, her eyes perusing the Hall in search of an escape from this conversation. The students chattered animatedly over their respective breakfasts. The Slytherin table was once more strangely subdued, though they were no longer staring at her. She guessed the novelty had worn off.

Slughorn gave a guffaw of laughter at her side. “Yes, he is rather caustic, isn’t he?”

Hermione waved the hand not currently occupied with her coffee dismissively. “His particular brand of humour is not to everyone’s liking but I’ve come to find that it grows on you if you give it time.”

Half of the table was staring at her. That had been a tad too loud. The Headmistress hid a smile behind her own cup while Hagrid winked openly at her. Neville looked scandalized and Aurora Sinistra taken aback. Borin was downright horrified. The rest remained, however, oblivious.

“Hermione,” Hagrid’s voice boomed. “Pass the honey, will yeh?” He stretched a hand towards her, knocking a bowl of something onto Professor Trelawney’s lap who yelped and jerked upwards, sending even more things clattering to the floor.

Hagrid began apologising profusely, his attempts at remedying the situation only generating more havoc, as Hermione pushed the honey dish towards him with a smile.

# # #

Things got worse in class. Much, much worse. Her first lecture was with a bunch of first years in a classroom on the second floor. Half of the students waited for her in the corridor, asking for autographs, which made her feel a bit like Gilderoy Lockhart, which was not a flattering comparison. In class, they refused to settle down, walking around, asking questions loudly, some of them impertinent about her relationship with Ron and Harry, before she could open her mouth to speak. Others elbowed each other and giggled, passing messages around openly. Some wanted to know if she knew or was friends with their older siblings who had been in school at same time as her.

It was all downhill from there. During her second class, with the first year Gryffindors and Slytherins, when she turned her back to write something on the blackboard, the Gryffindors used their wands to rip off the doors of the few class cabinets and made them fly around the room. Since their wand command was at their age less than stellar, some collapsed to the floor, narrowly missing a few heads. Whirling around as fast humanly possible, she had been forced take out her own wand and levitate the remaining flying doors back on their hinges. Her scathing remarks were lost in a flurry of voices, and stopped abruptly when she saw the Slytherins with their hands folded atop their desks, looking straight at her and giving no sign of having participated in any of the commotion. Then, thankfully, the bell rang.

The Gryffindors grabbed their books and bags and scampered out of the door in a riotous chorus of chortles and shouts. The Slytherins waited until they were all gone then picked up their own things quietly. Before they turned to leave, a few of them called out in her direction in soft, polite tones:

“Good-bye, Ma’am!”

“Have a lovely day, Professor!”

A string of sharp cries from the corridor kept her from pondering this bizarre development. She ran out of the classroom just in time to see Peeves grab at the Gryffindors’ bags, scattering their books and parchments all over the floor and upturning their inkwells over their heads. Hermione thought she saw the Bloody Baron, the Slytherin House ghost, slink round the corner. The Bloody Baron was the only of the castle ghosts who could control Peeves. Had he instigated this attack?

She hoped her next lecture, which was with a couple of sixth years, would be better, since they were more mature. She was looking forward to speaking to them as a friend imparting wisdom and council rather than a teacher, especially since she knew most of them, as they had gone to Hogwarts together for a few years. She was wrong. It was worse. Her decision to be friendly was instantly taken as an invitation to a familiarity bordering on discourtesy. They called her Hermione right off the bat, greeted her in an overly familiar manner, and treated her like one of their friends during a particularly raucous Hogsmeade escapade.

Again the only exception were the Slytherins. They sat with ramrod straight backs, listened attentively, and actually took notes. They raised their hands when they wanted to ask questions and addressed her as _Ma’am_ or _Professor._ And not one of their questions were personal in nature or about Ron or Harry. Hermione, who had known only the bullying of Draco Malfoy and his cohorts and the teasing of Pansy Parkinson and her friends on the part of Slytherins, was, needless to say, bewildered, and slightly unsure how to react.

“Which N.E.W.T. classes would your recommend for a future career in the Ministry, Professor Granger?” asked a burly, brown-haired Slytherin boy after patiently waiting with his hand in the air for a few good minutes before Hermione could catch a pause in the surrounding chaos to listen to him.

“Looking to start a new Muggle-born registration act, Rookwood?” shouted someone.

Hermione froze. The Slytherin boy, who had turned beet red, his eyes scintillating with fury, bore the same name as Augustus Rookwood, who had attacked and killed students during the battle of Hogwarts before being chased off by George Weasley mere moments after Fred’s death.

“Think they’ll put you in a cell next to your Death Eater uncle, Rookwood?”

“Listen to him. He wants to work for the Ministry. I bet he’s already looking for the next Dark Lord to pass information to.”

“I bet they all do. Aren’t you, snakes?”

The Rookwood boy didn’t retaliate but his knuckles were white as he clutched at a piece of parchment.

“That’s quite enough,” Hermione said, though her voice lacked conviction.

For a moment she was back in the heat of the battle and felt the stench of smoke and blood and death in her nostrils and heard the cries of the wounded and the dying. It had happened here… in the school!

# # #

The last class rattled Hermione. She was humiliated by her failure at dealing with the students. Failure in an academic environment was alien to her, which left her uncertain on how to navigate it. She was loathe to admit to it in front of her former professors who had witnessed the repeated triumphs of the brightest witch of her age. And she was ashamed that she had not properly stood up for the Rookwood boy, ashamed that all she could see, when looking at him, had been his uncle and the devastation he had caused.

As she slunk to the library on instinct, as she always did when the proverbial tail was between her legs at Hogwarts, she thought back to Severus and his treatment of Harry. Some of it had to come from the necessity of maintaining his cover but most of it was genuine dislike. She knew for a fact James Potter still haunted Severus. Augustus Rookwood hadn’t harmed her personally yet all she had seen in his nephew had been the imprisoned Death Eater. Of all the things she wanted to understand about Severus this wasn’t one of them.

Irma Pince smiled at her, which only helped to unsettle Hermione further. She slipped through the rows of bookshelves, inhaling deeply, taking in the scent of stale dust and old paper, letting it wash over her and provide comfort, as she sought out a secluded table at the back. She wanted nothing more than to disappear inside of a tome and lick her wounds.

“I think this might be your best essay yet, Penny.”

That melodic voice was familiar. Astoria Greengrass.

“You think so?” replied a much harsher yet still feminine voice. “Too bad it’s for such a lightweight subject as Muggle Studies. What did you write about, anyway?”

“Dylan Thomas. He is a twentieth century Muggle poet.”

“ _Do not go gentle into that good night_ ,” Astoria’s friend read. “ _Rage, rage against the dying of the night._ Old Borin would think you made it up.”

Astoria’s laughter was as crystalline as the murmur of a mountain stream. “I wish!”

Hermione peered at the two girl through a small crack made by two books placed at an odd angle on the shelf obscuring her from view. They were sitting side by side at the farthermost table pouring over parchments.

“Why didn’t you tell Pansy you’d done all your homework for the Christmas break?” Astoria was asking.

Hermione stared at Astoria’s companion. Was that Pansy Parkinson’s sister? Her rather massive, athletic built would not have suggested it but the hair colour matched, though Penny’s was only barely reaching to her shoulders, while Pansy’s had always been long, and there was something about the line of her jaw. It was certainly possible. She studied the two girls with a renewed curiosity.

“It’s not Pansy’s fault.” Astoria was still speaking. “She’s doing the best she can.”

“Does this mean you won’t look over my Charms homework?”

Astoria sighed audibly. “Give it over.”

“Greengrass, what are we reading this week?”

The brown-skinned boy from the train sank into a seat next to Astoria. Two more Slytherin boys came along with him.

“Shout louder, Talkalot,” Penny groused. “I don’t think they heard you in Edinburgh.”

Talkalot was unconcerned. “It’s the first day after the holidays. Nobody’s here yet.”

“I have thought that, since Macbeth was such a success, we might read another of the Shakespeare’s plays.”

“Speaking of Macbeth, I’ve been thinking over the holidays,” piped in another boy, this one lanky and auburn-haired. “When she speaks about how the blood spot on her hand would not go away, Lady MacBeth’s clearly feeling guilty not over her ambition to become queen but over what she had to do to get there.”

“That took you the entire Christmas break to figure out, Travers?” Penny muttered and the other two boys chuckled.

“Obviously not,” he snapped at her. “Listen. What if the king had been a tyrant? What if Lord and Lady Macbeth had killed him to save the land from him? Would they still have felt so guilty then?”

“Of course,” retorted Talkalot. “Murder is never justifiable. It rips and tarnishes the soul. It’s a violation of nature itself. Obviously even the Muggles know as much, if this play is anything to go by.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong, Edmund,” interjected the third boy, who had been silent so far. “If the king had been a despot, then killing him would have perfectly excusable. The crime of Lord and Lady Macbeth is heinous because the king was a good one. If he had been bad, what were they supposed to do? Let him continue to terrorize the country? After all, was Macduff to be ridden with guilt for killing Macbeth?”

“That’s a good question,” said Astoria. “Do you think Macduff grew to bemoan his own damned spot? Macbeth was an usurper and deserved his fate but Macduff slew him. Murder is still murder.”

“Yes!”

“No!”

Hermione’s insides turned as cold as the wintry air outside. The surreal spectacle of a group of Slytherins animatedly discussing a Shakespeare play waned from her ears. In her mind’s eye she saw Dumbledore’s face as Severus recalled it just before he had complied with the Headmaster’s order to kill him.

_O_ _ut, damned spot_ , she thought as she slipped back as quietly as she could. Her heart was thumping an uneven staccato in her chest. She ran out of the library and hastened to her new quarters, where she grabbed a scarf and her winter coat. She sprinted onto the grounds, her boots sinking into the snow and slowing her down, the sharp air like shards of glass entering her lungs.

Dumbledore’s grave rose white like a swan from the snow.

“How could you?” she screamed. “How could you? Do you know what you’ve done? What you condemned him to? It did rip his soul. It did leave a mark? Why?” The tears that were streaming down her cheeks were scalding against her cold skin. “Did we all mean so little to you? Were we all just pawns in your game? Or was it just him? Because he was not one of us? Because he was a Slytherin? Because he had been a Death Eater? How much more did he have to pay? How many more pounds of flesh did he have to give until you were satisfied?” She choked on a sob and slammed down a fist on the stone of the grave. Her knuckles hurt from impact. “How dared you die and leave us to righten the world all by ourselves?”

She fell backwards in the snow, her hastily wrapped scarf coming undone. “You lost.” She pulled herself back up and brushed off the snow clinging to her coat. “He has one of your own now.” She rubbed at her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand, and tightened her scarf around her neck once more.

With one last malevolent look at the grave, she turned and jogged to the gates. She had no more classes today. Once off the grounds, she Disapparated.

# # #

Severus was indeed at Spinner’s End. She didn’t wait to take off her coat this time instead she just wound her arms around his neck and kissed him. With lips and tongue and teeth she told him of her desire to abandon herself to him. Dexterous, long-fingered hands clung to her, as he kissed back, taking what she was offering. His mouth quickly grew demanding, asking for more and more, and she granted it until she became dizzy with breathlessness.

“Did your return to Hogwarts not live up to the expectations?” he muttered snidely against her mouth, when they had to break up for air.

“Don’t talk,” she said, her fingers already working on the buttons of his frock coat. “Just take.”

He disentangled himself from her, emotions shifting over his face so fast she had no time to decipher them. She thought she glimpsed doubt, though. Then his expression solidified into a darkly unrelenting one, while mildly amused curiosity glinted in the depths of his black eyes as they swept over her form.

“Disrobe,” he ordered, the command clipped.

Hermione obeyed without the slightest courtesy spared to hesitation.

# # #

He pushed the fire in the grate to life with a flick of his wand. They were huddled together before it on pillows and the patchwork quilt she had gifted him for Christmas.

“They flew cabinet doors in class,” she told him.

His hair was mussed from their love-making, almost entirely obscuring his face with fine, black strands. “You turned your back on them,” he said matter-of-factly.

“How was I not supposed to turn my back on them? I was trying to write something on the blackboard.”

“You can never turn your back on them and if you do, you must grow eyes on your nape. Lest they kill each other in class. Then you will be tasked with explaining the situation to the incensed parents.”

“How did you not murder us in our first year?”

He flickered the hair off his face with exceeding artifice. His upper lip curled. “By exercising an extraordinary amount of willpower.”

“Why is this so hard?” she puzzled. “I fought in a war. I faced the greatest dark wizard of all times. These are just children.”

His slight grin grew wicked. “I have always been of opinion that the war would have been much shorter, if we had simply locked the Dark Lord in a classroom with several eleven-year olds.”

“That would’ve been cruel and unusual punishment.”

“For whom?”

“For Voldemort, of course.” She snickered. “Harry, Ron and I did foil his plan to get the Philosopher’s Stone when we were only eleven.”

He chuckled, the sound warming her insides, as it coursed under her skin in a honeyed sensation. “It could be worse. I was only a little older than you are now when I first became Potions Master at Hogwarts. Many of my students had seen me suspended head first while Potter was striping me for their entertainment.”

She felt chilled again. “What did you do?” she asked, trailing off on the pronoun, her voice tapering into a groan of self-deprecation. “Sorry… stupid question.” Of course! How had it not occurred to her before? He had been the youngest teacher at Hogwarts when she had attended. Many of his students had gone to school with him and, as he had just said, some had seen him being bullied and humiliated on a regular basis. There was no way they had started to show him respect the moment he had become their professor. So much about his methods made sense to her now that she viewed them… _him_ through this lense.

His gaze was shrewd, considering as it focused on her. “You are responsible for them while you are in the classroom,” he droned, his bored tone belying the seriousness of his words. “You may not be responsible for their future, too, as you do not number among their regular teachers but you are expected to keep them safe through any means necessary, whether they loathe you for it or not. At eleven or twelve, they are dunderheads with less self-preservation abilities than a flobberworm falling off a cabbage leave. Then they become teenagers and the hormones do all the thinking for them. And they all possess magic, each and every one of them can lift any given blunt instrument and bludgeon themselves over the head with it because to their dunderheaded minds this appears to be good sport.”

“What do _I_ do?”

His left eye-brow lifted elegantly. “Are you asking _me_ for teaching advice?”

“Nobody was floating cabinet doors during your class.”

His upper lip curled again. “No, you only stole from my stores and set me on fire.”

“All right then. When someone jinxes a broom during a Quidditch match, I won’t be muttering any counter-curses and let the student plummet to their death. What else?” She inched herself closer still, until her skin stuck to his slightly sweaty one, and pressed a light kiss to his naked, scarred shoulder. “I’ll make it worth your while.” She kissed at the slight pout of his lips.

“You are being a study in subtlety, Hermione.”

Her palm stroked gently at his chest. “I’m a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin. It’s all I’ve got.”

He pushed her back against the pillows. “I am certain we shall make do.”

TBC


	33. Swimming in a Fish Bowl

Hermione looked at herself in the enlarged version of the small, cloudy vanity mirror in Severus’ childhood bedroom. The mirror was a regular, Muggle one so it had no words of wisdom to impart to Hermione who felt uncomfortable in her own pearl grey wizarding robes. She still preferred Muggle attire.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t want to frighten my students. I’d rather approach them as a friend giving advice.”

Her husband looked at her over the book  on curses he was reading while sitting in the only chair in the room at a slight distance from her. “The students might be dunderheads but they are no fools,”  he replied, sounding utterly bored and enunciating each other word carefully as if  he had rolled it in his head before speaking and found it  inadequate . “They are wholeheartedly aware that you are not their friend. You are older than them—granted not by much but still… and you have authority over them, less than their regular teachers but still….  Yours may not be ordinary classes but you need to command respect  nonetheless . Until you do, they will not cease attempting to quibble with the boundaries in an attempt to discover how far they can push them  or how far they can push you,  for that matter .” 

Hermione sighed,  thinking of his voluminous, black robes billowing in the corridors of Hogwarts, giving everyone pause. He robe-clad form cut far less of an imposing figure, not that she wished to frighten the students as Severus used to. “I should be practising the Adversus charm,”  she said, stepping away from the mirror, intent on changing the subject. “for the next time we had a run-in with Umbra.”

“If you cast it successfully, you will deplete your energy core for hours on end. Surely you do not wish to face the Hogwarts staff and students while you are still recuperating.”

“Have you made any progress with the fear inducing curse?” she asked, sitting herself on the edge of the bed cautiously, not wanting to wrinkle her robes too much. Even with a spell, undoing that damage would not be easy.

“Crux est si metuas quod vincere nequeas,” he quoted from behind the maroon leather bind of his tome.

“It is torture to fear what you cannot overcome,” she murmured. “I’m not afraid of Umbra.”

“How very Gryffindor of you,” he muttered with his usual sarcastic bite. “How do you presume to instil fear within a being from another world if you do not experience it yourself?” He snapped his book shut and delicately set it on the sideboard. “Take out your wand.”

She listened reflexively, the heft of her wand resting heavily on her palm, and stood up.

“Aim it at me as though you were about to cast the Cruciatus.” He paused, his expression calm to the point of blankness, his bottomless, black eyes fixed on her, his gaze dark and penetrating. “Metuo,” he commanded, though since he didn’t have his own wand out, nothing happened.

“Metuo,” she repeated gingerly.

“Mean it!” he snapped, nearly startling her.

H ermione lowered her wand. “We are not testing this on you,” she said firmly, sharpening her gaze to defiance as she stared back into his eyes.

“Do you mean perhaps to test it on an unsuspecting Muggle off the street then?”

Something tightened in her chest at his mocking tone but she didn’t raise to the bait. “No, we’re testing it on me.”

He swept up from his seat, his own robes billowing around his form like tarry smoke. His wand was in his wand in the blink of an eye. Hermione’s lower back hit the narrow window sill before she even caught the movement of his wand. The window flew open allowing in the damply chilled winter air. He was on her in an instant, his long, elegant fingers wrapping around her neck, his thumb on her pulse point, pressing yet not squeezing. His body came over hers bending her out the window and into the blackness of the January night outside. The tip of his wand jagged into her jaw.

“I’m not going to curse you, Severus, so you might as well give up trying to make me do it now,” she heaved. She was breathless, though he was not cutting out her air, her head a little too light, and her body shivering in a way that had nothing to do with the cold night air nipping at her back and nape. “I feel no fear that I could reflect back at you, anyway.”

He pushed her out the window that very moment but he never let go of her instead his right arm came to wrap itself around her middle, wand still clutched between his fingers. For a few seconds as they fell, she was enveloped in black smoke then he landed them both on their feet in the thin snow layer blanketing the tiny backyard. He released her as soon as her feet were on solid ground. 

“You’re the one afraid,” she realised. “Of what? Of me?” She could not see much of his face in the shadows. She barely discerned when his wand came up again. “Cast it…. Come on then, curse me!”

“I cannot!” His voice came out ragged, haunted, his usual silky baritone sounding like flawless crystal caught in the process of shattering

Hermione frowned, confused. “You’re safe with me.”

He laughed then, the sound even more jagged than that of his voice had been. “You foolhardy Gryffindor girl… you have no idea. Then again how could you?”

She took a few steps towards him, the soles of his boots cracking the frozen snow as she went. “Then tell me… please…. I want to know.”

“Let us return inside. It is cold.”

“You threw us out of the window but fine,” she grumbled and lead the way.

He stoked the fire in the sitting room with his wand and sank into the armchair with the gracefully stealthy moves of a black panther  setting down to  rest. Only that he didn’t look relaxed at her all, the line of his  round , strong looking shoulders rigid beneath his  robes . She sat cross-legged in front of the grate, deliberately putting herself in a lower position than him. The orange glow of the fire exposed his darkly tormented expression as the light of the flames flickered over his face. 

“I don’t understand,” began Hermione. “I’m the vulnerable one…. You know I’m falling for you. You saw it in my mind. You love another woman I could never measure up to…. You’re not risking anything.”

He leapt to his feet and began to pace, his agitation evident in his less than controlled moves.  “Then why do I fail to Occlude properly when I am with you?”  His robes brushed her side  each time she passed her by. There were not a lot of space for this in his  small, cluttered sitting room.

Hermione tried to temper the flare of hope in her chest. “Severus… do you think you might be starting to feel something for me?”

He whirled on her, his expression thunderous, raw rage burning in  coal black eyes that glinted dangerously. “Do not be tiresome, Hermione!”

She stood up, approaching him carefully as one might a spooked wild beast ready to bolt at any given moment. “ Do you feel that perhaps you are betraying her by allowing yourself to care for me?”

His lips twisted in a  horrible sneer. “ Whenever I touched a woman _before_ , I woke up filled with shame as though I had been unfaithful but with you  I have felt no such compulsion.” 

Hermione licked her lips nervously, feeling in her mind for the right words, trying to think over the maddening staccato of her foolishly hopeful heart. “ I am not asking anything of you.”

“I wish you were,” he spat. “Then I could lay the blame squarely at your feet.”

“I don’t know what you want from me, Severus.”

He advanced on her, his tall, dark shape dwarfing her. “I want to do terrible, depraved things to you, things I would  never  have dreamed of even thinking with  _her_ . Everything in me that appalled her and that I strove so hard to shelter her from, I wish to unleash on you…  and with you. I want to test the  Metus curse on you. I want to show you and revel in the exquisite voluptuousness of the Dark Arts that I have long denied myself.  If it disgusted Lily, I want to inflict it on you.”

S he sought his eyes as he stopped right in front of her, their bodies a mere hairbreadth from touching. “Then show me,” she said, dropping her voice to a low whisper.  Her gaze sought his, trying to project an invitation for him to look into her mind. “You must realise by now that I’m attracted to this side of you.” 

He lifted a hand and trailed his index finger over her the seam of her mouth, the shift in his expression difficult to place. He looked almost… fond, though there was no mistaking the hunger in his eyes. To her disappointment he didn’t press into her mind. Instead he dropped his hand. “The spell first,” he said in a husky whisper. Was it her imagination or was there a hitch in his breath?

Hermione took a step back, struggling to will away the heat unfurling in her body.  Research was so much easier when her mind didn’t permanently reside in the gutter or underneath his clothes.  “ We can’t use that curse for the very first time in battle,”  she said and winced. That was quite an understatement if she ever heard one.

“Can we not? I have never realised.”

Hermione made a show of rolling his eyes at him. “We’ll take turns,” she bit back tartly.

“I surmise even a Gryffindor must be afraid of something,” he snipped back, not to be unmatched. He lifted his wand. “Prepare yourself,” he cautioned.

“I’m ready,” she said sternly, clenching her jaw.

His wand moved.  “Metuo!”

The fear was bone chilling and verging on panic as it blossomed within her, appearing to  unrolling from her middle and spreading in her mind  as if it were  near physical sensation. It was over before she had time to experience it fully. She doubted it had lasted more than two or three seconds.  He lowered his wand.

“Like the Cruciatus, right?” she asked and when he nodded, her own wand swung into the air. “Metuo,” she cried summoning the fear that she might never find her parents.

He staggered on his feet from the impact of the curse, his features contorting into a grimace of such horror, she could not bear the sight, and was quick to lower her wand and put an end to it. “ I think that’s enough for one, night, don’t you?”

He looked belligerent for a moment, like he might want to fight her on this but then he  gave in with a brief inclination of his head . His breathing was a little raspy. Hermione suspected the expression of abject fear on her face had to have been as difficult to endure for him as it had been to see the exact same look in him. His wand went away and he trailed into the kitchen. Hermione followed and watched as he put on the kettle. 

“If we are discovered, the Ministry might be inclined to revise the list of Unforgivable Curses in order to add a fourth,” he said conversationally, the softness of his voice bellying the gravity of his statement.

She took out two mugs and some chamomile tea she had bought the last time she had been here. “Then we’d better step up those Occlumency lessons.”

He raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t comment.

“In case I’m interrogated using Veritaserum,” she explained, though she suspected he had comprehended her meaning even without her clarification.

“As I have already cautioned you, the Dark Arts can be extremely alluring.”

“It’s not the Dark Arts,” she pointed out. “It’s the dark wizard.” 

He  poured the hot water into a mustard-coloured teapot with a chipped spout then spun on her, grabbed her chin in a firm hold, and kissed her hard on the lips.

“I’m not blind to the implications,” she said gravely once they broke apart. “We might not be creating this curse for human use but I’m well aware of the harm it could cause in the wrong hands. We need a weapon against Umbra and we need it soon, preferably before it makes itself too comfortable either among Muggles or among us. Besides, we all used Unforgivables during the war. Maybe I’m rationalizing but this doesn’t feel any different. It makes me wonder, though, how much of what we now call the Dark Arts was invented in much the same fashion and misappropriated later. How much of the Dark Magic do we misunderstand?”

He smirked. “Nothing I taught in my Defence  A gainst the Dark Arts classes, I assure you.” 

She watched as he filled their mugs with tea then stared thoughtfully into the rising steam. “That’s just it! It’s _Defence_ Against the Dark Arts. Right off the bat Dark Magic is presume to be something illicit that can never be put to any good use but merely safeguarded against.”

H e raised a brow, sarcasm practically radiating from his every pore. “That is the official Hogwarts dogma.” 

“Well, it didn’t stop Tom Riddle from the most powerful dark wizard in history and plunging wizarding Britain into two wars, did it?” 

“Is Minerva aware of her prized cub’s newly-found heretic opinions?” he said silkily.

“All I’m saying is Gellert Grindelwald was expelled from Durmstrang that teaches Dark Magic, while Voldemort graduated with honours from Hogwarts that teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts. Do you know who else graduated from Hogwarts?”

“The overwhelming majority of the Death Eaters,” he dead-panned.

“So the connection did occur to you?”

“Numerous times. Do you know what else occurs to me just as we are now speaking?”

She  shot him a pointed look. “What?”

“That you have returned to Hogwarts for a day and you are already pondering a reform of the school’s curriculum?”

She chuckled,  as she looped her fingers around her tea mug to warm  them up. “ And you are surprised?”

“I suppose I would have been surprised if the opposite had been true.” 

“Theoretically speaking, though,” she started.

His eyebrow practically disappeared into his hairline. “No,” he replied firmly.

“Are you saying it can’t be done?”

“No, it can most certainly be done… provided that you place everyone in our world under the Imperius curse beginning with the Minister of Magic and your former Head of House, which, given what you are considering, is strangely appropriate.”

“I’m serious,” she retorted and stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea. 

“So am I. Not even a member of the glorious Golden Trio can achieve what you are suggesting, Hermione. If there ever was a chance, no matter how infinitesimal, it was pulverised into nothingness after what happened during my regime as Headmaster. Might I suggest you shift your focus back to Azkaban? The odds of safely ridding the fortress of dementors are considerably higher than those of introducing the Dark Arts as a subject at Hogwarts.”

#  # #

The next time Hermione saw Severus was on his birthday. She came in carrying a dinner menu for two from the Three Broomsticks in her beaded purse along with a few other things. Her husband was standing by the grate, looking awkward and formal dressed in black trousers, white shirt and frock coat as per usual. When she came closer, she noted he smelled profusely of his lemon soap and while his hair fell around his face limply, it wasn’t greasy at all. She pecked him briefly on the lips.

“Hello,” she said with a smile. “Happy birthday!”

He winced and pinched the bridge of his nose, his upper lip curling ominously. 

“I’m going upstairs to change then I’ll set up the table. I’ve brought us shepherd's pie, Cornish pasties and chocolate trifle from the Three Broomsticks,” she went on, ignoring his reaction. By now she knew that she couldn’t expect Severus to react as most people would to… well, anything. 

Two long, cool fingers curled around her wrist, retaining her. “Hermione, wait… please.”

She faltered and looked at him in concern. Something was amiss. He held out an elongated, black velvet box in his free hand. 

“This is for you,” he said simply.

S he frowned in confusion. “What is it?” 

A crease appeared between his brows as he glowered, his expression odd, very nearly bordering on uncertain. “A gift,” he huffed, sounding more than a little offended. “I am giving you a gift.”

Oh! Hermione couldn’t contain her sniggers. “Severus, you’ve got it backwards. You’re supposed to receive presents on your birthday not give them.” 

He lowered his hand in time with his gaze. He looked stung. There really wasn’t any other word for it. “If you do not want it, then I am no longer extending it to you.”

Hermione sobered up immediately, realising her faux pas. She cringed at herself. She should know better by now. “No, no, I want it.” Her hand darted and snatched the proffered box before he could make it disappear with his extraordinary ability for wandless and wordless magic. 

She quickly set her purse on the floor and set about opening what she could now see was a jewellery box without even pausing to remove her coat and  hat .  It was an antique-looking, most likely silver toggle bracelet.  The toggles bore the same design as her wand, her beloved vine wood wand with a dragon heartstring core that she had been fortunate enough to recover  in the aftermath of the war, after the Malfoys returned everything the Snatchers confiscated to the Ministry in an obvious show of good faith. 

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, sincerely impressed by the thoughtful personal touch. “Thank you.” 

She tried to put it on but her fingers were trembling slightly so he leaned forward to help and only made it worse when he managed to snag her skin with the clasp. Hermione bit the inside of a cheek and said nothing. She had had  much  worse than that mild pinch. Spots of faded pink appeared high on Severus’ sunken cheekbones, though. He produced his own wand and touched it to the bracelet. It  clinched shut instantly. Hermione pushed the sleeves of  both  her coat and jumper higher up her arm to get a better look at how the bracelet appeared on her wrist. It was truly fitting, none too flash y , exactly the kind of jewellery she would wear on a regular basis.

“This is lovely,” she murmured, feeling flustered. “Thank you… very much!” She closed the small distance between them and gave him a longer, more intimate kiss. 

When she pulled back, she saw a strange, doubtful expression in those familiar black eyes she felt she would never tire of admiring. It occurred to her for the first that this man, who was turning forty today, had never been in a relationship with a woman before. It was no wonder things worked as weirdly and as unevenly as they did between them. When it came to relationships, Hermione was the more experienced one and she had only had two brief, one of which mostly long-distance, school romances. 

“I shall clean the desk,” he said softly. “We can dine here.”

“All right,” she replied with a nod and bent to pick up her purse again.

“Would you prefer to listen to music while we eat?” he asked blandly. 

Hermione blinked. It was an evening for surprises apparently.  “Music? You have music in here?”

He raised an eye-brow at her. “I have a record player,” he countered, the touch of  the  old, familiar snide tone putting her a bit more at ease.  This was more like what she was used to from him.

Of course! She was being silly. He had grown up in the Muggle world same as her. It stood to reason he owned and was capable of using items Muggle employed for entertainment. “Sure,” she said lightly, doing her best to contain the curiosity that was bubbling to the surface of her mind. What kind of music did Severus Snape listen to? She was looking forward to finding out and slotting another piece of the puzzle that was her husband into place. “Just play whatever you want. I’ll be right down.” 

She sprinted upstairs after that and changed into the red dress she had worn at Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Under her hat she had tamed her hair with Sleekeazy and piled it on her nape in what she hoped was a somewhat elegant loop. Her hair could never fit into a chignon but she had made it come as close as she could. She arranged the few strategically loose strands around her face in a fashion that seemed halfway to artful even if she did say so herself. She sprinkled her neck and cleavage with perfume and applied  some carmine Muggle lipstick before  making to return to the sitting room. On the second creaking step of the narrow staircase she froze.

_ And did you exchange  _

_ A walk on part in the war  _

_ For a lead role in a cage? _

W as that Pink Floyd or was she hallucinating?  The song struck a cord with her for a multitude of reasons. Her Dad had loved Pink Floyd while at the uni, and used to play his old records around their house from time to time.  She stood on the steps listening for a while with her heart in her throat,  thinking of her father  and of how much she missed her parents. She also couldn’t help but muse whether that was  what her  part in the war had  come to— _a lead role in a cage_ , harassed by the press, hounded at the Ministry, and fighting to prove herself just like she always had,  restless on the inside, unable to shake off the terrors and the perpetual state of alert inherited from the  conflict .  She felt a tear trickled down her cheek and rubbed at her eye furiously.  She was ruining her own plans of having a nice, quiet dinner with her husband on his birthday. 

She hadn’t even presented him with his gift yet. The set of rare potions ingredients she had cobbled together from both Diagon and Knockturn Alley still lay at the bottom of her beaded purse. Taking a deep breath, she descended the rest of the stairs slowly, accompanied by a haunting, low piercing elegy of guitar and keyboards resounding from the sitting room. 

Severus had moved the desk from the window, wedged it by the fireplace, and put two of his rickety chairs on each side of it. There were plates, glasses, tableware,  a bottle of wine, and a stub of a greying, formerly white candle floating above the desk.  Severus stood by the grate, his hands clasped behind his back. When he looked up at her entrance, his gaze seemed to mirror her inner  disquiet .

_ Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl _ , she thought. 

Then his gaze descended, perusing her form. His dark eye s lit up with a new appreciation while his pale lips turned in a slight smile. Hermione found herself smiling back.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your lovely and insightful comments. They really mean a lot to me so please keep them coming and I'll do my best to answer them as soon as possible. Meanwhile enjoy a new chapter!
> 
> The Pink Floyd song referenced in this chapter is Wish You Were Here. All credit goes to the exceptional artists of Pink Floyd.


	34. The House of Merlin

Laughter reigned over the snow blanketed Hogwarts grounds as Hermione crossed towards Hagrid’s hut. The Black Lake was frozen solid and students were skating across its surface, sniggering and pushing and pulling at each other under the benign light of a pale January sun. She paused and watched for a few moments, her mind floating back to when she, Harry and Ron used to romp around the castle in similar manner. As  she  got close, however, she noted that there were no green ties and rosettes among the gliding figures, which struck her as odd. Regardless of animosities, the students of the Hogwarts of her time used to spend a lot of time mixed together… at least, the Hufflepuffs, the Ravenclaws and the Gryffindors  did . The Slytherins had always stood apart, she realised, Severus’ taunting about her not knowing the middle name of a single Slytherin reverberating in her mind. She flashed back to the Sorting Hat’s new song during her fifth year and its call for unity amongst the houses in the face of the encroaching darkness and Ron’s snort of disbelief  at the mere notion that said harmony could include Slytherins. 

“Leave her alone…. We’ll get into trouble,” she heard from somewhere out of sight.

On impulse, she followed the urgent voice around the loop in the slope. A small group of students standing away from the lake came into view.

“Expelliarmus!”

Hermione broke into a run, her stomach twisting with a bad feeling.

“Impedimenta!”

“I haven’t done anything to you, Cattermole!”

Hermione recognized the voice of Astoria Greengrass, now twinged with fright.

“No, but your kind’s done plenty of harm to my mother…. You would’ve put her in Azkaban with the dementors for the crime of having Muggle parents if it weren’t for the Chosen One!”

It was a scene out of Hermione’s nightmares, sickening in its familiarity. Three Gryffindor students had cornered Astoria who was flung upside down into the air, unable to move, while a frightened-looking Hufflepuff boy was pulling at the sleeve of the robes of a raven-haired girl. Blood roared in Hermione’s ears and she skidded to a halt.

“Expelliarmus,” she called out, effectively disarming Astoria’s attackers. “Finite incantatem,” she added as she rushed forward to support Astoria when she dangled back to the ground. The girl slipped like water through her fingers, when Hermione tried to put her arm around her torso, and fell to the immaculate snow, her face just as white. Her head lolled and a trickle of blood dribbled onto the whiteness, staining it with red.

_Just like Snow-White_ , thought Hermione nonsensically as she bent over Astoria’s prone form. The girl had her eyes closed and wasn’t moving, her breathing shallow and raspy.

“Draco,” murmured Astoria weekly. Her eyes shot open a second later, their white marred with fine strips of scarlet. She turned towards the snow and vomited blood.

Hermione squeezed Astoria’s shoulder. “What did they do to you? What curse did they use?”

There was a fury of voices that sounded far too defensive for Hermione’s liking. She ignored them.  She wasn’t interested in excuses. The bullies would get their deserved retribution but first, Hermione had to make sure Astoria was safe.  The girl needed the hospital wing immediately.  Astoria turned her head. Her gaze was glassy, lacking in focus. “ It didn’t work,” she whispered with blood running down her chin and dripping down onto her Slytherin green tie. Then she passed out again.

Determined not to waste any more time, Hermione hefted Astoria into her arms the best she could. It wasn’t easy, Astoria was taller than her.  Hermione enveloped her tormentors in a quick, fury laden glare.

“You,” shouted Hermione. “Report to your Heads of House now! I shall speak to them and to the Headmistress as soon as I get Miss Greengrass to the matron.”

“But we didn’t….”

“It was just Expelliarmus….”

“… and Impedimenta….”

“We didn’t curse her!”

Hermione paid them no heed. Her feet sank into the snow as she lugged Astoria back to the castle, her chest heaving with the effort. Astoria was deathly pale and smelled of the rusty tang of blood, of sickness and pain. Hermione shuddered. What had they done to her?

Madam Pomfrey took Astoria from her as soon as Hermione burst through the doors of the hospital wing. Hermione explained the situation to the matron haltingly, not liking the worried look on the witch’s face one bit.

“I haven’t been able to ascertain what curse they used on her but rest assured, I will get it out of them,” said Hermione. Her fury had the same colour as the blood Astoria’s had spilled onto the whiteness of the snow. Hermione could feel it on her. It was tainting, licking over the innocence of her memories of Hogwarts. 

The matron started at the word curse, her mouth setting in a thin, pale line. “They likely didn’t curse her,” grumbled Pomfrey, lifting Astoria slightly to pour a goblet of mixed potions down her throat. “Miss Greengrass is sickly and… frail of constitution. The fright they’ve given her was enough to trigger this episode.”

H ermione drew closer, a measure of  fear seeping into her bones, too. Something struck her as odd about the matron’s words. They sounded mechanical as if rehearsed. She was about to ask more questions when the door was flung apart with a wild bang. Hermione whirled, wand at the ready, incensed at the mere notion of another attack.  But it was Slytherins who rushed in, Pansy Parkinson’s sister, Penny, and Talkalot, the seventh year House prefect. 

“Astoria,” cried Penny, sprinting to her friend’s side. “I’m going to kill them.” She grasped Astoria’s hand. “It’ll be worth going to Azkaban for!”

Talkalot rested a hand on Penny’s shoulder, his head corking slightly in Hermione’s direction. Penny’s wrathful expression showed no indication of abating, however. “What was she doing out on the grounds alone?” he asked Penny quietly.

Hermione stepped closer, as Pomfrey began to wipe the blood off Astoria’s face with a linen cloth dipped in warm, flagrant water from a bowl she had levitated atop the bedside cabinet. “Mr. Talkalot… Miss Parkinson, are you afraid to walk around the school alone?” asked Hermione suspiciously.

Penny and Talkalot exchanged a pointed look. Instinctively Hermione knew they would lie to her. “No, Ma’am,” replied Talkalot, while Penny lowered her gaze back to her still unconscious friend, her expression much subdued. “Why would we be?”

The matron snorted indelicately as Astoria’s blood coloured the water in the pale china bowl pink.

“Have attacks like this happened before?” insisted Hermione, trying to be gentle rather than urgent but not quite succeeding.

“Attacks? I’m sure this has been nothing but a misunderstanding, Professor,” said Talkalot softly, his tone level and much too courteous for Hermione’s liking.

Hermione looked at him over Astoria’s unmoving body. “You can talk to me, Mr. Talkalot… Miss Parkinson. I will make sure the guilty parties will be punished exemplary, regardless of the house they’re in.”

It was Penny’s turn to snort but Talkalot elbowed her, and she fell silent again instantly, busying herself with sitting on the edge of Astoria’s bed.

Hermione’s jaw set. “What’s the password to the Slytherin dungeon?” she asked, struck by sudden inspiration.

Penny and Talkalot exchanged a panicked look.

“House of Merlin,” trembled a scratchy voice.

A storia was sitting up on the bed with a wince while Poppy Pomfrey was trying to push her back on the pillows gently. “ There is no reason for you to trouble yourself, Ma’am,” said Astoria evenly. “This has been nothing but a misunderstanding.  I faint all the time and  with no  cause at all. You may ask the matron about it, if you will.”

“How long have you been telling this exact same story?” asked Hermione sharply.

Astoria was looking at Pomfrey who was pulling the coverlet over her. “Pardon me, Ma’am, but I find myself failing to grasp your meaning.”

“I thought I told you to call me Hermione.”

“I beg your forgiveness but that would not be appropriate as long as you are our teacher,” said Astoria mildly.

“Professor,” said Pomfrey rather sharply. “While I do appreciate your intentions, I’m afraid your questions of Miss Greengrass will have to wait until she’s feeling better.”

“Yes, of course,” responded Hermione.

“Where is my wand?” murmured Astoria to Penny and Talkalot.

Hermione answered in their stead: “Still by the lake, I assume. Don’t worry, I will get it for you!”

She nodded to the matron on her way out. Madam Pomfrey gave only a curt inclination of her head in response as she was too busy telling Astoria’s friend they were to stay for no longer than a minute.  Hermione hurried outside. It was unconscionable for a witch or wizard to be without a wand. Any other considerations could wait.  She found Astoria’s wand not far from the blood still blemishing the purity of the snow.  The wand was a handsome one, long and slim with an elaborate, flowery pattern on the handle. It was cedar, judging by the colour.  She remembered that the ancient Egyptians used the cedar oil to embalm the dead.  She frowned, banishing the  idea , it was such an odd thought to have at a time such as this. 

She made the trip back to the hospital wing to return Astoria her wand. She found the girl alone and asleep on the bed, her face as white as the snow outside, her lips still flecked with dried blood. Hermione put her wand on the bedside cabinet.

There were hushed voices coming from Pomfrey’s office. One of them belonged to the Headmistress.

“I gave her a sleep draught so you won’t be able to speak to her until tomorrow morning.”

Hermione pushed the door opened. Both women inside looked up at her arrival. To Hermione, Minerva Mcgonagall had always looked ageless, existing on a plane beyond time. It didn’t take her long, however, upon her return to Hogwarts to note that he headmistress had aged, the line around her mouth and eyes having multiplied and deepened. Perhaps it was merely a sign of the exhaustion that seemed to hand around her permanently like a cloud. Mcgonagall looked particularly tired now as well.

“Oh, Hermione,” said the Headmistress. “Poppy was just filling me in on what happened.”

Hermione closed the door in her wake with quiet snick so their conversation would not disturb Astoria’s slumber.

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding,” uttered Hermione tightly, her words clipped.

Mcgonagall sighed. “No, it’s doesn’t appear to be so.”

“What’s been done about the bullies?” Hermione wanted to know.

“Professor Sinistra and Professor Sprout deducted points, of course, and they will be given detention.”

“That’s it? That’s all they got for nearly killing a fellow student?”

Mcgonagall shot the matron a desperate look. “Poppy assures me Miss Greengrass’ condition is unrelated.”

Hermione clicked her tongue, the fury that was rising within her now no longer boiling hot but veering towards icy cold. “Unrelated? Are you aware, Headmistress, that nobody in Slytherin house is going anywhere alone any more? That they tell what sounds like well rehearsed stories about bullying instances like this being only a misunderstanding?” 

“Now, I’m sure that if anyone in his House were consistently targeted, Horace would have brought it to my attention.”

“Since I have come back, all I’ve ever heard Professor Slughorn talk about was his club. Are you sure he pays enough attention to the students of his House to notice if something was really wrong? For that matter, where is he now? One of his students is lying in the hospital wing looking as though she’s at death’s door.”

“Let us not exaggerate, Hermione,” said Mcgonagall sharply, a familiar stern expression spreading onto her weary features.

Hermione was past caring, however. “Is that what you told Severus when four students of your own House routinely put him in the hospital wing? Did Professor Slughorn bring anything to your attention then?”

The Headmistress’ brows drew closer together above her bespectacled eyes, and she lowered her gaze. “This situation is, by no means, similar. This time steps have been taken to punish those involved.”

Hermione scoffed. “You must be joking! You didn’t even know these things were happening. You are the headmistress! You are responsible for these children. _All_ of these children!”

“Hermione, you forget yourself,” admonished Mcgonagall sharply.

“Yes, there seems to be a lot of that going on around lately,” spat Hermione bitterly. “The Minister of Magic thinks I’m forgetting myself. Now the Headmistress of Hogwarts does too! Gryffindors are bullying Slytherins. Again! And you’re doing nothing. Again!”

“As far as I remember it, it was the other way around when you were in school.”

“And that makes it all right?”

“Of course not,” snapped the Headmistress.

“Then why aren’t you putting a stop to it? Why didn’t you put a stop to it when it was Severus?”

“I was given to understand he gave as good as he got,” replied Mcgonagall evenly.

Hermione clenched her fists until her fingernails dug into the skin of the palms of her hands. She had to or she would have pulled out her wand. She  was incapable of thinking past her  growing ire. “ Is that what we’re calling self-defen c e now?”

Mcgonagall’s gaze turned calculating. “What is this truly about, Hermione? Severus or the current situation with Miss Greengrass?”

Hermione took a deep breath. They were alone now in the small office, the matron having slipping out sometime during their fight but Hermione had failed to catch when. “This is about history repeating itself,” she answered in the coolest tone she could summon. “This is about your students thinking the latest war was between Gryffindors and Slytherins and that Gryffindors won, and acting accordingly. Is this what we fought for, Minerva? Is this what our friends died for? Because I seem to remember that during the battle, when the hour was most dire, Professor Slughorn came to our aid with reinforcements from Slytherin. And that we wouldn’t have won this war, if it weren’t for one Slytherin who was ready to die for our victory.”

Mcgonagall lowered her gaze once more, looking ashamed. “You do not understand,” she said in a quieter voice.

“Then explain it to me.”

Mcgonagall  expelled a long, shuddery breath and indicated the wooden chair in front of the matron’s narrow, rounded desk. When Hermione sank into it, she occupied the twin seat on the other side. “ The walls of this castle may look as intact as they have always been but the school is anything but, Hermione. You are right, of course, about the war. However, during the same war the families of students such as Miss Greengrass killed, maimed and tosse d to the dementors the parents of other students.  Others were reduced to begging on the streets.  Some of the same children who are our students now almost starved to death.  Miss Cattermole, who instigated the attack on Miss Greengrass is….”

“The daughter of Mary Elizabeth Cattermole, a Muggle-born much like myself, Dolores Umbridge, a Slytherin, stood in judgement of for the trumped-up charge of stealing magic and would’ve sent to Azkaban if it weren’t for me, Harry and Ron. I know. I remember. So when does it end?”

The Headmistress scowled, looking bemused. “Whatever do you mean?”

“This!” Hermione waved a hand into the air over the desk. “A dark wizard raises from Slytherin and terrorizes the entirety of wizarding Britain, we fight him twice over and we win, and now we are punishing the whole House, regardless of individual blame. It gets so bad that before long they retaliate and then we strike back… in self-defence, of course. And on and on it goes until… we’re all dead, I suppose. Or will our ghosts continue to blow raspberries at each other like Peeves does? When does it end, Headmistress? If not with this war, then with the one after that… or the next one?”

Mcgonagall lowered her gaze to the few rolls of parchment neatly organized on Pomfrey’s desk. “What would you have me do, Hermione? The governors want Slytherin House thrown out of the school. They have the Ministry on their side. Voldemort was from Slytherin… he was the Heir of Slytherin, in fact. All Death Eaters, bar one, came from this House. You number among the preciously few sorcerers in the country who do not blame the entire Slytherin House for the two wars that so have devastated us recently.”

“Do you blame them, Minerva?” asked Hermione, locking eyes with her former Head of House.

The Headmistress’ mouth became pinched. “I am trying not to… every day.”

Hermione’s veins filled with ice. “Severus is right,” she said sadly.

“What about?”

“We have been treating him differently since the war out of obligation. Everyone is just biding time until he so much as dips one toe out of line and they will turn on him… just like they always did.”

“That is most unfair, Hermione.”

“So is life,” replied Hermione grimly. “Do you know that when we were at Hogwarts, if Severus so much as looked their way, Harry and Ron would accuse him of plotting something nefarious? For crying out loud, Harry thought Severus was trying to poison Remus when he was only getting him the Wolfsbane potion.” 

Mcgonagall gasped but recovered quickly. “Your friends were only children back then. They have much grown up since then.”

Hermione got up. “Were you not with us when we discussed  Severus’ upcoming trial? We almost didn’t defend him because we reasoned that, no matter what, he still did awful things while pretending to be loyal to Voldemort.  If it weren’t for Harry….” Her voice broke on her friend’s name, a wave of tenderness for  him washing over her. Harry had come through for Severus and she couldn’t be more grateful for it. Harry’s showing of Severus’ memories at the trial had been the turning point for her, she realised with the benefit of hindsight. It was one thing to know and a whole other one to see for yourself. “ If only we all grew up like Harry did,” she added. 

Mcgonagall’ s lips turned up in a small, wistful smile. “I will not deny that we owe Severus an insurmountable debt or that many of us resent being thus obligated to a dark wizard from Slytherin.  I am not blind to the realities that give grounds to Severus’ cynicism but never for one second mistaken my gratitude for obligation,  Hermione! At least, give the benefit of  _that_ doubt.” 

H ermione would have been more inclined to be lenient if she weren’t so worried about her husband. She was certain that if what Severus had been doing to counter Umbra were to be discovered, he would go to Azkaban, regardless of the reasons for his actions. The Ministry would find something that would stick. With public opinion being what it was, Hermione was unsure if even the Golden Trio could save him this time. 

“I am giving you the benefit of doubt, Minerva,” said Hermione as firmly as she could. At present she gave nobody the benefit of any doubt. “I can only hope you will give my words some consideration.”

M inerva pulled to her feet with contained grace. “I will,” she said. “ Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to convince Professor Ennui not to resign in the middle of the school year.”

H ermione looked at her ex-professor from where she stood by the door. “I thought that with Voldemort dead, the DADA position is no longer cursed.”

“That might be the case but the lack of a jinx doesn’t make Professor Ennui any more willing or capable of teaching children. She would much rather be back in Bruges and penning down her next book.” 

H ermione had read all of Ennui’s books on the moral implications of using Dark Magic and found them fascinating but apparently, the scholar’s theoretical knowledge didn’t translate well to classwork.

# # #

Hermione had never been to the Slytherin dungeons before and she remembered a great deal of the description Ron and Harry had given her of the place during their second year. Still she failed to identify the bare stretch of stone leading to common room. She had to wait until a group of students returned from their final afternoon class. They cast her uncertain, confused looks as they passed her by but still greeted her respectfully. She frowned, puzzling over the Slytherins’ odd deference to her.  She had come to get to the bottom of the well-rehearsed story they had told about what had happened to Astoria but something new just occurred to her.  All the other students treated her like one of their own for worse… and for the worst but the Slytherins acted like she was a venerated professor. 

Of course! T he realisation sparked like a lighting match in her head. How had she not figured it out before?  The main Slytherin trait was cunning, after all. 

“House of Merlin,” she told the empty stone. How quickly people forgot this was not the House of Voldemort but the House of Merlin, Hermione thought.

The Slytherin common room, which was rather full at this time of the day, went so silent one could hear a pin drop. Every head in the place swivelled in Hermione’s direction. Then Talkalot and two other prefects began quietly ushering the younger students towards what were presumably the dormitories. 

In order to give everyone time to recover, Hermione stepped deeper inside and took a curious look around. The Slytherin common room looked just like it was: a dungeon, with rough stone walls and green-tinted lamps dwindling from chains. Green dominated the place and a large painting of a serpent hang above the mantelpiece. It was cooler than in the rest of the castle, despite the roaring fire in the grate. There were black and green leather sofas scattered around and medieval looking tapestries blanketing the stone of the walls from place to place.  None of that held her attention, however, instead she was drawn to the oblong windows revealing the rippling, emerald water  that remained unfrozen within the  very depths of the lake. 

“May we help you, Ma’am?” asked a polite voice from behind Hermione.

She turned and was faced with a group of several older Slytherin students who were studying her cautiously. They were the only ones left in the room.

“Yes, as matter of fact, you can,” said Hermione. “You can tell me what you want.”

Looks were exchanged between the students but no words. 

“Our former Head of House,” piped in Penny Parkinson briskly. 

“I don’t have him chained in a dungeon somewhere,” Hermione fired back.

Talkalot actually grinned. “Far be it  for us to comment on your private engagements, Ma’am, but we need Professor Snape for reasons that I believe have become readily apparent to you.” He gestured towards a nearby sofa. “Have a seat… please.” 

Hermione stifled a sigh and sat down. As if on command, all the students followed her lead and sat as well. “ I want something in return,” Hermione said after taking a moment to think.

“And what would that be?” inquired a seventh-year who was the son of a Death Eater named Travers.

“A favour,” replied Hermione. “One day I am going to need something from your House. I don’t know what that might be yet or when I’m going to need it. But you will give it to me, no questions asked.”

Penny snorted loudly. “Someone set the Sorting Hat on fire. It’s gone senile in its old age.”

“That was a very Slytherin like answer, Madam,” said somebody else. 

Hermione smiled. “I learned from the best.”

There were quite a few sniggers around the room. 

“We need to talk amongst ourselves,” said Talkalot finally. “and confer with former members of our House. Until then we can’t commit to anything.”

Hermione stood up. “You have until the end of the week. Bear in mind that if you refuse me, I won’t be able to help you, either.” 

A beautiful, olive-skinned girl elbowed Penny. “What do you know? You were right. The Hat  _is_ senile!”

Hermione looked to her. “I like to think that it’s not  that simple, that each and every one of us is more than the sum of a few characteristics, that we all have something from every House in us.” 

“I have nothing from Hufflepuff, thank you very much,” grumbled Penny Parkinson.

TBC


	35. Present Imperfect

The notes that spilled from the piano were soft and sad, a delicate elegy to an unnamed loss. Hermione stood in the doorway to the Music Classroom and watched Astoria play. From Hermione’s admittedly limited knowledge, the Slytherin girl played well, confidently and yet with great sensibility. She had gone to the hospital room in search of Astoria only to be told by the matron that she had been released, as she felt better. Though looking at Astoria now, at the bruised skin around her eyes, at her pale lips and at her skin that seemed too thin as it stretched across suspiciously prominent cheekbones, Hermione doubted the validity of that statement. A spring picked up in the tune being played but even that was haunting, grim.

Astoria’s back tensed and she stopped playing, her wand appearing in her hand as she whirled around. When she saw it was only Hermione, she pocketed her wand again and her stance relaxed.

“How are you feeling, Astoria?” asked Hermione advancing into the room after she closed the door in her wake.

“Better, thank you, Ma’am,” replied Astoria in her prim and proper tone of voice. “I was told you came to us… that you asked for a favour in return for the service we requested.” Here she paused minutely. “We agree.”

Hermione nodded. “All right.”

“Think like a Slytherin,” said Astoria softly, her deep, brown eyes coming alive with a devious spark.

“Excuse me?”

“The look of doubt is everywhere in my House these days as long-held convictions are crumbling and those we have put our trust in failed us. I have no difficulty recognizing it…. And you look doubtful right now. I imagine you’re unsure how to determine your husband to do something he doesn’t want to.” Astoria smoothed a wayward lock of hair behind her left ear. “If you want a Slytherin, you need to think like one.”

“I’m starting to think you’d be better off asking the ghost of Lily Potter,” said Hermione. She wasn’t afraid of betraying any of Severus’ secrets. Since his trial, his link to Harry’s mother had become public knowledge, and Rita Skeeter had certainly dragged it and him through the mud at length in her book.

“What good would that do?” wondered Astoria.

Hermione pulled a chair next to the piano and sat down. “Don’t feign innocence, Astoria. It’s not a good look on you.”

Astoria smiled in that seraphic way she had. “You’re looking at this all wrong.” She folded her hands on her knees. Even fresh out of the hospital wing, her short nails were painted the same Slytherin green as her tie. “Your husband changed sides in a war for the sake of a woman. Surely he can come to a place he doesn’t wish to be in for another. He can keep Lily Evans Potter in a his heart and you in his arms. The question is what you want.”

Hermione realised she should have know it was a bad idea to play this game with Slytherins. In his own backwards way, Severus had even warned her once not to toy with those from his House. But she was a Gryffindor and as such, she was unwilling to back down from a challenge. “What were you doing alone on the grounds, Astoria?” she asked sharply, keeping a stern look on the girl. “Were you meeting Draco?”

Astoria’s eyes widened and a look of profound grief crossed her face. “I was not,” she answered, sounding defensive. “It’s just that… it’s difficult finding some time to yourself in our House nowadays.”

Hermione leaned forward, studying her intently. “Did you really risk an attack like the one suffered just to be alone for a while?”

“I’m not the topic of this conversation.”

“Well, I don’t enjoy being its topic, either,” griped Hermione. “You said Draco’s name before you fainted.”

Astoria lowered her eyes and got up from the piano, moving to stand by one of the windows, her back to Hermione who was thinking back on the melody Astoria had been playing.

“What happened?” pushed Hermione. “Did Draco do anything to you?”

“Why does everyone think he’s the villain in all this?” asked Astoria quietly.

“Because it fits his pattern of behaviour.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I barely know anyone in your House and yes, that includes my own husband. So… if he’s not the villain in all this, then who is?” Hermione stood as well and walked to place a light hand on Astoria’s shoulder. “Let me help you, Astoria.”

When Astoria looked at her again, her eyes were swimming with tears. “No one can help me.”

“I know I’m a Gryffindor, that your family and I fought on different sides in the war, and that you probably don’t trust me much but I can help you…. I want to help you! Here I brought you this.” She took out the well-worn, bare bit of parchment from her pocket and held it out to Astoria.

“What is that?” Astoria wanted to know.

“Poetic justice,” answered Hermione. With her free hand she pulled out her wand and touched it to the parchment. “ _I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.”_ The Marauders’ Map revealed its secret. “Take good care of it. Harry wants it back at the end of the year. In the meantime, the map will help you and the rest of your House evade your tormentors. When you’re done with it, just touch it with your wand again and say: _Mischief managed_.”

“Why are you giving this to me?” inquired Astoria, her tone suspicious, though she did take the map from Hermione.

This close Hermione could sense that the girl still smelled faintly of blood. “Appearances matter,” replied Hermione bitterly. “It’s the first thing I learned working at the Ministry and the one I least wished to know. The Headmistress can’t expel your attackers because it would appear that she took the side of a daughter of Death Eaters over that of the children of a victim of Voldemort’s reign. The truth of the matter will fall through the cracks.”

A tear did dribble down Astoria’s emaciated cheek at that. She held up the map between them. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Hermione gently. “The melody you were playing… I haven’t heard it before. It was beautiful. What’s it called?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Hermione blinked rapidly a few time, taken aback. “You composed it yourself? You’re talented! I’ve never hear a witch or wizard play anything of the kind… or in this manner.”

Astoria smiled wistfully, showing Hermione a glimpse of her pearly white teeth. “Magic makes us capable of producing the most flawless musical pieces but ultimately, they are like the ideal of blood purity: dull, empty… perfect. I only understood when I heard the music of Muggles such as Chopin or Erik Satie, whom I particularly favour. Beauty stems from imperfection… from the terrible and uneven struggles of the soul which is wrecked with passion and loss and yearning, and not from the mathematical alignment of notes.”

Hermione looked out the window and over the snow coated Hogwarts ground. “When I went to this school, I used to think the world was black and white. I guess I’m not used to looking at things from your perspective.”

“Red and green is more like it,” commented Astoria dryly.

Hermione smiled, though she suspected it came out more like a grimace. “Yes, I suppose so. Now I’m learning just how many shades there are in between.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Madam. You’re not the only one undergoing a journey of discovery. Growing up I was taught that magic was might and belonged exclusively to the Pure-Blood who were superior to those like you. That Muggles and those are Muggle-born are… are…. That anyone who didn’t believe like us was a blood traitor.” Astoria turned her gaze to the grounds, too. “I remember sitting there at my father’s trial and listening to him justify rapes and murders, and the things he’s done to children in the name of Pure-blood supremacy and I thought _never again_!”

“Is that why you’re having the rest of your House read Muggle books?”

Astoria cast a furtive glance to the door. “With all due respect, Ma’am, if you don’t know about it, you don’t have to lie to the Headmistress.”

“Your new Muggle Studies teacher isn’t helping matters, is he?” asked Hermione suspiciously, thinking back to Umbridge and Dumbledore’s Army.

“If anything, his attitude only confirms the old prejudices,” muttered Astoria darkly.

“I hope you’ve been reading Jane Austen,” said Hermione archly.

“Naturally,” responded Astoria. “I’ve had to prevent no less than six duels over Sense and Sensibility alone.”

Hermione scowled. “None of them better be over the fact that Willoughby might be a good choice for Marianne Dashwood.”

“I would’ve killed anyone who said something so idiotic with my own hand. Colonel Brandon is perfection!”

Hermione grinned. “Of course he is!” She leaned a shoulder against the wall behind her. “You do realise you can do a lot better than Draco.”

“That’s far from the prevailing opinion outside my house,” quipped Astoria, though her smile was not unfriendly.

# # #

Severus waved his wand over the bubbling cauldron vanishing the dark golden liquid inside. “Dunderhead,” he muttered with feeling, angry at himself. War or peacetime, people still died on his watch.

_H_ _ow many men and women have you watched die?_ , asked Dumbledore from his memory.

He frowned, parsing through the uneven swirl of thoughts in his head. He waved his wand again cleaning the cauldron. He removed a jar of fairy wings from a shelf—he only had the two. He poured honeywater into the cauldron and carefully brought it to a simmer, as he set onto crushing two valerian roots into a mortal until they were powder. While he was stirring the valerian powder into the mixture, he shifted through ideas. Assuming that he could acquire it, when and how would he add it?

# # #

At Spinner’s End, the record player was playing Pink Floyd once more. Her husband was nowhere to be seen, despite the crackling of the still burning fire in the grate.

_You set sail across the sea_

_Of long past thought and memories_

_Childhood’s end, your fantasies_

_Merge with harsh realities._

Removing her coat, Hermione sank into seat by the fire heavily. Hogwarts had put an abrupt end to whatever childhood fantasies Severus had entertained, crushing his hopes of escaping from his home misery into the world of magic. Instead he had been cast into a new circle of pain. It was like a nightmarish version of her and Harry’s story. In the place of friends, shelter and acceptance, Severus had only found more loneliness and rejection there, and had ended up losing his only friend.

What seemed so simple at Hogwarts became infinitely more nuanced at Spinner’s End. At Hogwarts, Hermione had seen the injustice the Slytherin students were being subjected to, and had been quick to spring into action. At Spinner’s End she was reminded that Severus didn’t refuse to return to the school just to be difficult. He was likely avoiding the memories the place evoked, memories of bullying, loss, pain and horror. The year he had spent as Headmaster had to have left a mark on him as well. What he had to have gone through struggling along the fine line of protecting the students and maintaining his cover! Then there was Dumbledore’s death which haunted him in ways Hermione knew too well. Despite how much his House needed him, was it fair to request of him that he returned to Hogwarts?

She remembered the consideration he had shown her in sparing her a visit to Malfoy Manor where she had been traumatized. Yet here she was considering scheming to drag him back to a place of so many traumas for him. How was that the right thing to do?

Her husband came in, the dark circles around his eyes matching his black attire. His skin was so sallow it appeared downright sickly. He looked a lot like he used to during her final years at Hogwarts. A rapid wave of his wand re-established his wards. Then he was striding purposefully towards her. Hands like talons lifted her from the armchair. He smelled of honeywater, roses and woodsmoke. She pushed one side of the curtain of dark, oily hair away from his face, arranging it behind his ear, to get a better look at him. She was about to ask him if he was all right when he kissed her, his lips demanding as they slanted over hers. Closing her eyes, she opened up to him. His arms curved possessively around her body.

Severus broke the kiss and looked at her with an expression she had never seen in him before. It flickered away before she could even begin to decipher its meaning. He still hadn’t said anything. She opened her mouth to speak but he kissed her again, this time gently and slowly as if he was savouring her, his mouth a delicate, throughout pressure against hers. Her fingers curled in the blackness of his robes over his shoulders, as she clung to him, drinking this startling approximation of tenderness like a parched woman before a fresh mountain spring. The doubts sapping at her fled, and she was left only with the certainty that she wanted more of this… just like this.

His eyes were heavy lidded when they had to come up for air. “I ought to take a bath,” he said, his breathing shallow.

Hermione didn’t relinquish her hold on him. Usually he never went to bed with her without scrubbing himself clean first in an attempt to appear more presentable, she had realised even without the use of Legilimency. She wanted him just like this, though, smelling of male musk and potion ingredients, his hair oily from the fumes. Her gaze sought his communicating him without words the truth of her desire. His ebony eyes glittered, his fingers feeling like talons again, as he hoisted her up in his arms bridal style. His mouth devoured hers all the way up the stairs to the bedroom.

# # #

Being wanted was a terrible drug. Everything about him that had repulsed Lily enticed Hermione. She was fascinated by his power without coveting it. She was attracted by his ease and ability with Dark Magic, and even hungered to know more about it. She desired his less than youthful, misshapen, scarred body with bones sticking out unattractively from his pale skin. He had seen it in her mind. She fantasized about him and planned ahead what she wanted to do to and with him in bed. And she yearned for his dark, fractured mind contorted by pain and guilt, and everything that made him such a badly put together man both inside and out. Instead of being repulsed or horrified, Hermione was drawn in, finding his mind electrifying and him overall mesmerizing.

No woman had ever wanted him. Every woman he had ever slept with had wanted something from him. He had never resented it… or them. He caught glimpses of himself in the mirror. He knew how he looked and how he was. Normally nobody even wanted him around. They tolerated him because they needed him for something or the other. He had come to understand as much early in his life at his father’s blows and rejections. He was gangly and weird and awkward and off-putting and repulsive like an overgrown spider, and incapable of connecting with another human being. In the end, he had failed at connection with Lily as well. He was simply wrong. He had always know that. Even his formidable intellect was no different, too dark and twisted to be anything but suspicious. His hopes and dreams of acceptance had collapse with his delusions about what and who Voldemort was. Cold respect that was devoid of any affection was the best he could expect from those around him. And even that he had had to instil through distance and terror most of the time.

Hermione wasn’t afraid of him, however. There was nothing cold or heartless about her genuine respect for him. No, Hermione wanted him. She wanted to be around him, and she wanted to sleep with him. No strings attached. She just did. Soothing her as she trashed in the grips of a nightmare, he felt all his dark desires and intentions for her dissolve. He could recognize them for what they truly were now: feeble, desperate attempts at maintaining a control he had never possessed around her from the first moment he had discovered her crush on him. It didn’t matter that it would probably not last, that it was likely only a youthful fancy liable to disappear when better options became readily available to her. The crux of the matter was that he was the subject of her infatuation. Nobody had been infatuated with him before. Nobody had longed for him in any fashion before. He was out of control. A monumental effort of will would have perhaps restored it but he didn’t want to make it. Loss of control was too small of a price to pay for being wanted. Finally! If only for a while.

“Shh,” he whispered, pressing light kisses into her hair. “It is over! You’re safe. You are with me.”

She blinked bleary, tearful eyes at him, and hid her face in the coarse material of his night shirt right above his heart that beat like a trapped bird struggling to escape its cage. “Oh, Severus,” she murmured.

His thumb brushed the wetness of her tears from her temple. “Empty your mind,” he instructed, keeping his voice low and even, despite the raspy quality of his breath, hoping it would come out as gentle, comforting. “Let go of all emotion… of your horror, your anger, your guilt…. You are floating far and above it. Bellatrix and her knife are beneath. Close your eyes. Image yourself drawing the blank canvass of your void mind over her… over the knife. Put the wall into place slowly… Occlude….”

He kept indicating how she should Occlude even as every wall in his head came rattling down, leaving him completely bare and exposed for the first time since Lily’s death. An old, treacherous dream bloomed on the convoluted, unprotected surface of his mind. He recalled it but vaguely: a wisp of a long-buried hope he had entertained back when he had been young and foolish, and still capable of imaging a life other than that of pain, rejection and scorn he had resigned himself to. It flitted from where the years, the loss and the despair, the servitude to two masters, and the Occlumency walls had pressed down onto it for so long. Severus had had no idea it was still intact. Yet there it was. The ancient, wobbly yearning to be accepted and loved.

With a gentle move of his hand entwined in the thick strands of her hair, he pulled Hermione’s head from his chest. Their eyes met. Hers were still wet yet significantly more tranquil. Though she had Occluded as instructed, she let him in her mind easily, pulling the wall closed after him. Her mind reached for him and he met it halfway, as her thoughts curled around the presence of him in a warm embrace he was quick to return.

TBC


	36. The Game

Even in school Hermione had maintained that Quidditch fostered dissent between the Hogwarts Houses. Her rather innocuous observation had nothing on trying to see things from a Slytherin perspective. During the weeks leading up to the Slytherin versus Ravenclaw match at the end of February, the school practically began to boil, as Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and of course, Ravenclaw, allied themselves against the serpents. While a Gryffindor student herself it had been exhilarating to see the whole school support her House so openly, and she had always assumed it was because the lions had earned it. Now as an adult she understood that it was only a case of everyone colluding against Slytherin. If Slytherin competed against a host of dementors and Inferi then the other three Houses would support the dark creatures without a second thought.

Instead of worrying that eleven-year olds were hexing each other in the corridors, the teachers placed bets on the upcoming match, while Slughorn and Flitwick, as heads of Slytherin and Ravenclaw respectively, played at being friendly rivals. Hermione had not been this enraged since she had found about the Hogwarts house-elves.

“How much can we put you down for, Hermione?” asked Professor Sinistra, the new Head of Gryffindor, one morning over breakfast.

“How about zero galleons that children won’t be about to kill each other over a school game?”

Professor Sinistra looked taken aback but Slughorn actually smiled jovially. “Come now, Hermione, it’s all good sport,” he said with twinkle in his eyes that did nothing to improve the young witch’s mood.

“There is enough animosity and bullying going around in the school already without allowing Quidditch of all things to add to it. We, as teachers, should be fostering inter-house cooperation instead of gambling on matches.”

Slughorn’s smile faltered. “Well, of course, things are still a little tense after the last war but I am confident that in time the students of the other Houses will warm up to Slytherin again.”

Hermione set down her tea cup with a soft click. “Oh, get your head out of the Slugclub for one minute and take a look at your own House. When has anyone ever been warm towards Slytherin? I went to this school for six years and we all hated them. When the Chamber of Secrets was opened, people were clamouring to chug them out of school. If anything went wrong at Hogwarts, they and their Head of House were the primary… no, the only suspects. Ask Harry, if you don’t believe me.”

Silence befell not only the Head Table but also those students who sat closest to it. While most of the teachers were glaring at Hermione, Mcgonagall looked slightly ashamed, her eyes fixed on her plate. At Professor Sprout’s side, an ashen-faced Neville was staring at her as if she had just grown a second head. A few hushed whispers travelled along the Slytherin table then each and every head there swilled in Hermione’s direction. She thought she saw a newfound respect on many a face. She looked at them and saw children and young people who were confused and lost, and in need of guidance before a new Voldemort preyed on their pariah status. Fair or not to him, personally, she did need to bring Snape back here.

“Let us not exaggerate, Hermione,” said Slughorn diplomatically. “Slytherin students receive a fair treatment from all teachers. Why, look at young Miss Greengrass, everyone makes sure to keep her workload light, though we all know she is not as sickly as she appears, sly little Slytherin that she is.”

Hermione gripped her fork tightly, fighting the impulse to stab it through Slughorn beefy hand. Astoria Greengrass wasn’t Slugclub worthy, she was tainted by the association with her Death Eater parents, and, though a good student, she wasn’t exceptional enough to buy her way in. So Slughorn was virtually blind to the fact that, if anything, the girl was a lot sicker than she seemed.

“Miss Greengrass isn’t faking anything,” spat Hermione in the face of the answering nods all around her. “She vomited blood not long ago.”

“If she weren’t truly ill, I wouldn’t have her in my Hospital Wing all the time,” chimed in Madam Pomfrey while shooting Slughorn a withering glare.

“What’s wrong with her?” Septima Vectra wanted to know.

The Matron pursed her lips together, her features pinched. When she answered, her words were clipped, and Hermione got the distinct impression that she was lying. The answer seemed almost rehearsed. “She was born of sickly constitution as we all know.”

Hermione’s eyes swept over the Great Hall until she found Astoria at the Slytherin table. She was pushing her food around the plate, not eating. Madam Pomfrey would not breach the confidence of a patient but she could think of one other person who would know what ailed Astoria.

“Is that a protective charm bracelet, ‘ermione?” asked Professor Ennui, the Belgian DADA teacher, in a flagrant attempt at a change of topic.

Hermione looked down at the toggle bracelet Severus had gifted her on his own birthday. “No, I don’t think so,” she replied distractedly, still muling over Astoria’s disposition in her head.

“It has a wand pattern emblazoned into it. Is it your wand?” continued Ennui, apparently undeterred.

“Yes, it is,” answered Hermione, finally starting to pay attention.

Ennui set her expressive, catlike eyes on her. “Then it means that a mild anti-hexing charm has been woven into the material, though I have never seen it done with platinum before.”

Hermione abandoned any pretence at eating breakfast and ran a finger fondly over the toggles. “This isn’t platinum. It’s silver.”

“Oh, no, no…. I have an eye for jewellery,” said Ennui and as if to prove it, held up her right wrist higher. The sleeve of her elegant, lavender coloured robes, rode up exposing a glittering, rose gold tennis bracelet. Her ring finger bore a large, emerald cut canary yellow diamond. “Your bracelet is made of platinum,” she added with staunch conviction in her voice. “And if I’m not mistaken, a vampire artefact.”

“Vampires make jewellery?” asked Hermione in wonder, thinking back to Delphine Faust and her understated pieces.

Ennui smiled, exposing a perfect set of round, ivory teeth that would have thoroughly impressed Hermione’s parents. “No, they have them custom made for them by Goblins in a style that is uniquely theirs. It is a point of pride for them, you see, and they never agree to sell them to anyone. Since vampire jewels cannot be bought only gifted, they are priceless. I have never seen one so close until now. You were audacious to have something so rare engraved with magic. What if it was damaged!”

Hermione lifted her empty cup of tea to her mouth, attempting to hide behind it. “I didn’t have it engraved myself. The bracelet was a gift.”

“How romantic!” said Ennui in a voice that was far too loud for Hermione’s liking.

Hermione pretended to take a sip from her empty cup. The bracelet suddenly felt warm and heavy on her wrist, a sort of a protective cocoon seeming to emanate from its presence. She was wrapped in it, held safely. Her husband was trying to protect her from a distance. And Ennui was right, not that Hermione would confirm it out loud: Severus was a romantic at heart. Nobody was loyal to their first love for decades, if they weren’t a romantic. In his own way, he was letting Hermione know that, although he might not love her, he did care for her. Where Severus Snape was concerned, actions spoke louder than words.

The warmth inside her soon turned to ice, however, when she saw the looks she received from everyone at the table. It was obvious many wondered who had given her the bracelet in the face of the rumours regarding her alleged infidelity. Also, they likely found it hard to believe that such delicate gestures occurred between her and her husband. Only Mcgonagall attempted to hide a knowing smile behind her own cup of tea. From the other end of the table Hagrid, hulking above everybody else, winked at her. Hermione had a feeling that, much like the Headmistress, he, too, thought the bracelet was from Snape.

# # #

Standing in front of an unusually chatty mirror in the fitting room at Gladrags in Hogsmeade, Hermione felt like she was playing dress-up. The robes were not custom-made but they were still the fanciest piece of clothing she had ever tried on. They were not quite Slytherin green but bottle green, and made of a thick, winter ready material that still looked like velvet, light gliding off it as if from the shifting surface of the Black Lake. They wrapped around her neck and torso like a shawl and descended in bulky sleeves only to pinch at her waist then pool in a wide, crinoline like skirt. It was something Narcissa Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass would wear. The robes moved elegantly with her every step, and she found herself suddenly wishing she weren’t such a clutz in high heels.

Ignoring the praise the mirror kept spouting, Hermione pocked her head through the thick, parted curtain blocking the entrance to the fitting room. The shop assistant, who had recognized her upon entrance, sauntered over with a wide, excited green.

“You look amazing, Ma’am. I do hope you’ll take them.”

Hermione smiled back. “I will,” she replied. “I also need a cloak… a warm one, fit for travelling.”

The assistant bobbed her head enthusiastically. “Certainly. Any preference as to colour?”

“Something that would look good with green… dark grey or maybe, black.”

“I have just the one… if you’ll wait a moment.”

She returned carrying two cloaks: both hooded and bulky with wide sleeves and a bit of train. Hermione reached for the dark slate grey one.

# # #

Her purchases Reducted and arranged in her beaded purse, Hermione flitted out of Gladrags floating on a mild buzz of excitement. She saw Neville on the other side of the street, and he waved at her without much enthusiasm. Hermione frowned but still went over to him.

“Hi, Neville,” she said, and beamed at him. “I was just thinking of dropping by the Three Broomsticks. Care to join me?”

He shrugged, studying her attentively. “Sure, why not? Have you been shopping?”

“A little,” answered Hermione as they walked into the Three Broomsticks.

A few heads turned in their direction but neither Neville nor Hermione paid them any heed. Hermione thought she would never get used to her celebrity status. Rosmerta sashayed over with a smile. “Dinner for two to go as usual, Hermione?” she asked.

Hermione felt her cheeks heat up and she was quick to lower her gaze. “No, just a butterbeer tonight.”

Neville ordered the same thing, and waited for Rosmerta to move away. “We haven’t been seeing much of you at Hogwarts, Hermione.”

“What are you talking about? I’m on leave from the Ministry for my lectures. I’m here every day.”

“But you walk to the Apparition point outside the grounds almost every night.”

Blasted castle gossip! “Yeah,” she answered noncommittally. She wasn’t doing anything wrong going home to her husband nearly every evening but still she didn’t feel like sharing the many complications of her and Severus’ relationship with anyone, not even an old friend such as Neville. Besides, she already had to share Severus with Lily Evans, she didn’t feel like sharing him with the world, too. Not yet, anyway.

Rosmerta came back with their drinks, and they both took a long, drawn-out sip. Neville then set his butterbeer down, and stared at the table top with far too much intent. “Many Slytherins came back to the battle of Hogwarts to fight on Voldemort’s side.”

Hermione’s insides clenched painfully. “I know. I was there, too, remember? And all of those Slytherins are now in Azkaban.”

Neville tapped two fingertips on the edge of the table. “I just don’t understand how…. I thought you of all people would grasp why it is hard for people to go to school with _them_.”

“Me of all people?” she repeated dully. “Do you know what I also remember from the battle of Hogwarts? How in a crucial moment, when the balance seemed to tilt in Voldemort’s favour, Professor Slughorn and many Slytherins came to our aid. And also how we only won the war thanks to a Slytherin who was ready to die for our victory!”

“We were all ready to die for our victory,” countered Neville. “You weren’t at Hogwarts when _that_ Slytherin was Headmaster, Hermione! You didn’t see what he did to us, what he allowed to happen, the bruises, and the tortures, and the humiliations….”

“That’s true, Neville,” spat Hermione bitterly. “I wasn’t at Hogwarts that year! Do you know where I was instead? On the run, hunted, starving, terrified, tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. She carved this into my arm.” Suddenly grateful that she hadn’t allowed Severus to cover her scar, she pushed up her sleeve and thrust her marked flesh towards Neville’s face. “We all fought and suffered and bled, Neville. It doesn’t give us the right to treat children as though they were born monsters.”

“They think you’re a monster,” he pointed out, though he had clearly lost steam, the sight of her scar having made him wince and turn his eyes away as if pained by the grisly lines carved into Hermione’s skin.

“Because they don’t know better. Their families taught them that the Muggle-born and Muggles are an inferior species since birth, and they were never shown a different way. Ever since they were Sorted into Slytherin, everyone wrote them off as a lost cause. To this day they are not given a chance to confront and reject their parents’ sick and twisted world view.”

“Is that what Snape claims?”

Hermione took a deep breath, and erected an Occlumency wall in her head. If she couldn’t make Neville understand, then what chance did she have with everyone else? She needed to keep calm. “No, it’s what I claim.”

“So the Prophet is right for once? He’s been influencing you.”

“The relationship between me and my husband is nobody’s business. Not yours. And certainly not the Daily Prophet’s.” All right, so maybe she wasn’t all that calm. She hastened to raise a second wall in her mind.

Neville’s eyes went wide, shock draining his countenance of colour. “Relationship? You… you’re… you mean…. He’s Snape, Hermione!”

“Look, Neville, I know there’s a lot of bad blood between you and… Snape, and I can understand why. I’m not going to excuse his behaviour while he was our teacher but really, was it so different from that of Mcgonagall? Remember when she made you sleep outside Gryffindor tower while there was what we all thought was a deranged mass murderer on the loose?”

“She never tried to poison somebody’s pet, though!”

Hermione scoffed without meaning to. “Severus may not be without his faults. I know that, believe me, I do! But he never would’ve poisoned Trevor.”

“Really?” Neville shot her an accusing look. “How do you reckon?”

“He knew I was helping you. If he wanted to poison Trevor, why didn’t he stop me while I was practically making your potion for you instead of just deducting points from Gryffindor after the fact?”

“And that just make everything okay?”

“It acquits him of attempted toad murder,” she said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. “Neville, whatever Severus did or didn’t do doesn’t justify bullying an entire House out of Hogwarts or spitting on innocent young women in the streets. Besides, it’s not like we were entirely without fault, either. Dumbledore, who was practically our leader, sent Harry to his death.”

“He made provisions so he could live in the end,” snapped Neville.

Hermione shook her head, her memory of the former, revered Headmaster not so unblemished as that of Neville. “He set Harry, Ron and me on a vague treasure hunt in the middle of a war instead of telling us what we had to do to find the Horcruxes and win. And if he had to choose between victory and Harry’s life, what do you think he would’ve done?”

Neville lowered his gaze to his feet, his jaw visibly clenched.

“It was war,” Hermione went on. “Nobody’s hands stayed clean.”

Neville’s eyes found her face again. “Mine are,” he protested, his eyes burning with the indignity of her implication.

“Please don’t make me do this, Neville,” she said softly.

“Do what?” Neville was frowning, suspicion marking his features.

“I work for the Ministry,” Hermione began carefully. “I saw the dossier the Department of Mysteries has on Nagini.”

“What are you saying, Hermione?”

She hesitated, staring into her half-empty glass of butterbeer. “She was a Maledictus.”

“No….” Neville’s hands were buried in his hair.

“You had no choice,” insisted Hermione, reaching out with a hand to grasp his shoulder. “She was a Horcrux. She had to die.”

“I killed a person,” murmured Neville, his voice oddly flat, disbelief and horror etched onto his face.

“I’m so sorry, Neville.”

“No, you’re not,” he ground out, shaking loose of her would-be comforting touch. His eyes were brimming with tears. “You’re just trying to prove everyone’s as bad as Snape so you’ll feel better about what you’re doing with him.”

“I don’t feel at all guilty about anything I’m doing with my husband,” she replied truthfully. “And if I’m trying to prove anything, it’s that the Sorting Hat was right in our fifth year. There ought to be unity and friendship between all Hogwarts Houses for the good of the wizarding world. If a Hat can figure this out, why can’t we?”

“You’re Muggle-born, not one of those stuffy, old-fashioned pureblood ladies. If you don’t care about what he did as Death Eater, doesn’t it bother you that he’s old enough to be your father? That he used to be your professor?”

That did it! Occlumency walls or not, old friend or not, she was not going to stand for this. She got up abruptly and tossed the money for her drink on the table. The coins rattled off the wooden surface with a sharp sound that attracted quite a few looks from the nearby patrons.

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion… or your permission, Neville!”

Without waiting for a response, she grabbed her coat and her purse, whirled on a heel and stormed out. When the frigid wintry air whipped at her face, there were already tears, hot by contrast, running down her cheeks. If Neville judged her for her intimate relationship with Severus, then how would everyone else react?

# # #

Hermione was attempting to manipulate him. Severus had realised as much the second she had come home in a regal travelling cloak wrapped over a stunning set of deep green robes. Still she was gorgeous, the colour doing wonders for her skin tone, and the halo of her frizzy, brown hair tempting him to sink his fingers into those unruly curls cascading artfully around her lovely face. More than her beauty, it was the effort she had put into dressing up for him that undid him. Women, especially those who looked like Hermione, never strove to seduce a greasy, hook-nosed, sallow-skinned, repulsive bat of a man such as him. No woman had ever suffered his touch without making it clear that she was doing him an immense favour. Instead, Hermione was trying to curry _his_ favour.

And then there was the fact that she was trying to manipulate him, which wasn’t an insult to a Slytherin. The fact was made all the more attractive by her being a Gryffindor. Gryffindors asked people bluntly and tactlessly for what they wanted, they didn’t attempt to be sly about it. Manipulation and mind games were the domain of the Slytherins. Severus hadn’t even judged Dumbledore for resorting to that. He would never condemn anyone for it. It was the hypocrisy of pretending to be above such things that bothered him. But Hermione didn’t act like she was better than that. She was sincerely trying, though her attempts were clumsy and transparent at best, which only served to make them all the more charming in Severus’ eyes.

She had brought dinner as per usual, but not from the Three Broomsticks, and port wine, and kept smiling at him in a manner that was supposed to be enticing, he had no doubt. She transfigured his crooked desk chair into a small table, and floated fresh candles above it, and asked him to put a Pink Floyd record on. As he ate a poached salmon and roasted asparagus he couldn’t taste, Severus could think of one thing and one thing only. Whatever it was that she wanted, he would give it to her, even if he had to trudge through rivers of blood and sacrifice whatever little was left of his soul to do it. And here lay the crux of the matter. Hermione Granger, the insufferable Gryffindor know-it-all, had power over him just like Lily used to. Not because he loved Hermione but because she accepted him, flaws and Dark Magic and prickly behaviour and unpalatable friends and all. And he would do anything, anything at all, to keep that.

They didn’t make it to dessert. He grabbed her halfway through their meal, mindless with desire and no longer interested in even pretending that he had any control left around her, and they made love with a passion that was kin to violence on a transformed version of his sofa. He was no longer interested in pretending that they weren’t making love any more, either. Or that her hungering for the ferocity hidden within him wasn’t the headiest thing he had ever experienced. He recognized the type of attraction. It was the same he felt for the Dark Arts, the molten allure of the forbidden that pulsed like blood in his veins. As with the Dark Arts, he was powerless to refuse it. To refuse her.

“Come with me to the Slytherin-Ravenclaw match,” she said, lying in his arms, as sweat cooled on their still trembling body, the aftershocks of the frenzy not entirely gone.

Was that all she wanted? It couldn’t be! “All right,” he replied.

She lifted her head from where it had been pillowed on his chest. Her long curls were an even more maddeningly bewitching mess than the more tamed version she had presented him with upon arrival. “All right?”

He raised an eyebrow in challenged. “I believe that was what I said,” he quipped.

She grinned and bent to peck him on the lips. “All right.”

TBC


	37. Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin

On the evening of the Ravenclaw versus Slytherin match, Hermione arrived at Spinner’s End to find Severus in his makeshift potions’ lab in the old coal shed. He was dicing Dittany leaves. Before he knew what he was doing, he had lifted his gaze and swept it all over his wife’s form, nearly missing slicing into his thumb because of it. It was a serious oversight as he usually didn’t allow anything to distract him from his work with potions. Hermione was no longer wearing robes but one of her customary jeans and sweater ensembles. Still, she had a cloak she was now unclasping over it instead of her typical winter coat.

“Have you come to make certain I shall keep my word and come to the match tomorrow?” he asked in his best acid tone, more furious with himself than with her.

She grinned, unfazed by his tone. “Ouch, you’re in a mood.”

There was a brief rustle as she took off her cloak.

“May I help?” she asked politely.

He grunted and shoved a stack of dried ginger roots at her. “These require pulverizing,” he said sharply. “You remember how to do that, don’t you?”

“No, I’ve recently fallen and hit my head so hard that I forgot everything I learnt while trying with all my might to impress you in Potions class.”

Severus glanced at her while mixing the Dittany leaves with roses petals. When was it that she stopped taking his barbs as insults and started to consider them invitations to banter?

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said as he stirred the bubbling cauldron. “Astoria Greengrass is a lot more ill than she seems, isn’t she?”

“Normally her teachers assume the reverse to be true,” he remarked blandly and dumped a helping of fairy wings into the cauldron.

“Then I guess I must be outside the norm,” she replied in a tone matching his. “What’s wrong with her?”

He paused with the vial of silverweed extract in his hand. “Have you asked her that yourself?”

“Would she have told me?”

Severus added the silverweed extract to the mixture and began stirring again. “In all likelihood... no. Miss Greengrass does not wish to be treated differently, which would most probably occur, should everyone learn the particularities of her condition. Above all, she does not wish to be pitied.”

Out of the corner of one eye, he saw Hermione pause briefly before continuing in her labour on the ginger roots. “Duly noted,” she muttered.

Still stirring he began to explain himself. “Miss Greengrass carries a deadly blood curse first placed upon a distant ancestor. It will slowly but surely drain her body until she meets with an untimely demise.”

His wife stopped with the roots altogether. Severus waved his wand to extinguish the flame beneath the cauldron then turned to face her fully.

Only a lone candle made the shadows in the tiny shed flicker and dance. Even so, he could clearly see the grief and horror widening Hermione’s eyes. “Untimely?” she repeated her voice small and hollow. “How soon?”

“The curse advances haphazardly so its progress is difficult to predict. Miss Greengrass’ condition took a turn for the worse recently…. I would say she has no more than fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years?” She shook her head as if to arrange her thoughts in order and peered past him at the cauldron. “This is why you’re experimenting with blood replenishing potion and studying books on curses. You’re trying to find a cure, aren’t you?”

He turned back to the cauldron, though, strictly speaking, he did not need to. “Miss Greengrass’ symptoms first manifested during her third year at Hogwarts. Since then she has been treated with Strengthening Draught but over time she regrettably developed a resistance to the potion. I have given her an enhanced version to counter the effect but…. At first, the new solution seemed to be successful but it revealed itself to increase the draining powers of the curse.”

“You do realise that’s not your fault. You were only trying to help her.”

Severus whirled on her glaring at her in what he hoped was his best menacing fashion. “I’m well aware of _that…_ unhelpful as my help has proven up to this point.”

Hermione looked at him emphatically. “You’re an excellent curse breaker. You stalled the Horcrux curse in Dumbledore’s hand for a year.”

“If I am such a marvellous curse breaker, then I would have been able to stop it altogether.”

“If Dumbledore had been such a wise old wizard, then he wouldn’t have put on the ring at all,” she said snidely. “He had grown arrogant and had too much faith in his own powers. You have fifteen years! You can and you will save Astoria.”

“You will excuse me if I don’t share your reckless Gryffindor wishful thinking in the face of bitter realities.”

“It’s not wishful thinking. At least, I don’t believe it is.” She stepped closer to him and lifted a hand to gently cradle his left cheek, her neck craning towards him, the look on her face soft and tender. “But for what it’s worth, I believe in you.”

His arm shot out, his fingers wrapping tightly around her wrist, as he fully intended to remove her hand but then he felt the toggle bracelet he had given her through the wool of her sweater. His grip eased but he did not let go completely. He couldn’t remember seeing her without the bracelet ever since he had gifted it to her. He turned his face and brushed her lips against the skin that made up the centre of her palm.

“Vampire blood,” he said. He had entwined his fingers with hers and lowered their joined hands from his face, though he was still not releasing his hold on her.

Hermione’s eyes sparkled. “You have to change your blood completely to become a vampire!” she exclaimed, sounding the happiest he had ever heard anyone to be about transformation into one of the living dead. “The fledging is drained to the point of death and then given to drink vampire blood. You essentially get all new blood. That’s how you turn into a vampire! If you could replace Astoria’s blood entirely, you could cure her of the curse. But… blood replenishing potion only makes more of the same blood the person already has. You’re trying to modify it to change the blood as well, aren’t you? But how…?”

Warmth bloomed in the middle of his chest, and he had sudden difficulty suppressing a smile. Hermione might not possess an innate gift for potion-making or much scientific creativity but she was truly brilliant. Just because she was bright in other ways than he was, it didn’t mean that the spark was not there. He had noted it in school too, it just wasn’t like him to shower students with praise. Draco, the son of a man who could almost count as a friend, had been good with potions but Severus’ lauding of him had been limited to a distinct lack of censure.

“I thought to add vampire blood to the adjusted blood replenishing potion,” he said, letting the speed with which she had put two and two together go unremarked upon. “However, no vampire would ever even consider donating blood to be used for any magical purposes whatsoever.”

Hermione gripped the tips of his fingers tighter. “Have you tried talking to Delphine and her mother? Perhaps if we explain that it’s the life of a young woman that’s at stake here….”

He shook his head, not bothering to correct the rueful curl of his lips. “Their refusal was friendly worded but firm.”

“There has to be a way. There just has to be!”

She let go of his hand and became pacing to the best of the little ability their current cramped quarters allowed. She seemed agitated.

“You do realise this is merely a theory,” he said. “Nothing similar has ever been attempted. The new potion might as well change Miss Greengrass’ blood with no apparent healing after-effect.” 

She locked eyes with him again. Her expression told him she had considered as much. “It’s still better than nothing.”

# # #

Severus had Apparated to Hogsmeade and from there he was planning to fly to Hogwarts and sneak into the Quidditch Pitch at the very last moment. Unfortunately, someone else was on the verge of running late too.

“Professor!”

Hagrid captured him in a bone-crushing hug. Literally. Severus could feel his bones jostle and rearrange themselves.

“It is good to see ya! How have yeh been? I knew yeh couldn’t stay away lon’! Come ter see the game, eh? But of course yeh did… Slytherin’s playin’.” Hagrid released him only to stir him towards the teachers’ lodge which was precisely the place Severus had been aiming to avoid hoping to be able to slip into the Slytherin box quietly. “Fine day for Quidditch, eh?”

Severus winced, feeling his lips already twist into one of his sneers. Not that Hagrid seemed to notice as he kept on babbling on without allowing Severus to wedge in a word, which was the only upside to the situation.

“Blimey, Hermione woul’ be happy ter see yeh,” Hagrid went on, clapping Severus on the back so hard he knocked the breath out of him.

Severus did sneer this time. She’d better be!

Every set of eyes belonging to a Hogwarts teacher turned in his direction the moment he appeared. Some were staring with their mouths agape and reactions ranged from curious and taken aback to openly hostile. The Headmistress leapt to her feet in an instant covering her shock with a would-be welcoming smile. That had nothing on Hermione’s, though. Her smile gave the bright February sun a run for its money. She was wearing her new green robes. The Gryffindor princess was at a Quidditch game when Slytherin was playing and was dressed in green. The robes looked different on her away from the shadows and the misery of his Spinner’s End abode, highlighting her flawless porcelain skin and the golden-flecked brown of her eyes. And he was just standing there gaping like a fool.

Minerva was saying something, her tone strangely conciliatory, but he had a hard time paying attention. Hermione sprang from her seat and waved him over, still grinning, visibly thrilled that he had come. He muttered a greeting to the Headmistress and darted past her to his wife who was sitting next to Septima Vector but had still saved him a spot on her other side, in between her and Aurora Sinistra.

She leaned over to whisper in his ear when he sat down. “I know this was a lot to ask but I’m really glad you came.” She was wearing perfume, a discreet, youthful scent that blended citrus and basil.

He grunted a non-committal response. They were still being stared at as though they were roadside show exhibits. He rotated a most menacing version of his glare around but it didn’t seem to have the sort of unanimous effect he was used to. Neville Longbottom, in particular, gave him a sullen look that was just short of challenging. Apparently he was none too pleased about the idea of him and Hermione.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder from the row above them. “Severus,” said Horace Slughorn in a low, sweetened kind of voice. “It’s good to see you, my boy. How have you been?”

Severus glared pointedly at the new Hogwarts Potions Master’s hand, his upper lip curling again. Wisely Slughorn backed off.

Severus craned his neck to see his Slytherins… well, Slughorn’s Slytherins now. They were uncharacteristically quiet considering their team was playing. That was because they were too busy playing the _Stare at Snape_ the entire Pitch was engaging in. Many of the older students nodded at him. Unable to help himself, he nodded back.

“Hello and welcome to the first Quidditch game of the year,” boomed an overexcited voice.

Severus turned his head recognizing the mousy hair. Dennis Creevey of Gryffindor House. They could at least rotate the commentators for appearances’ sake, he thought. It was both dismaying and oddly comforting to know that in an ever-shifting world, Hogwarts stayed the same.

“Today’s game, Ravenclaw versus Slytherin, promises to be a tense one as both teams are in close competition for the Quidditch Cup along with Gryffindor. If Slytherin loses today, no matter the score, they forfeit their chance at the Cup this year.” Creevey was positively triumphant announcing that last bit.

“Slytherin has a new Seeker this year,” said Hermione, her shoulder lightly bumping his. Everyone around instantly lost their interest in the field and returned their attention back to the two of them. Longbottom looked positively livid. “Azalea Rookwood,” continued Hermione as though she failed to note the stares they were getting. “She’s a second-year and shows real talent… or at least, so Penny says.”

She was also the niece of a Death Eater. Though Azalea was too young to have done anything wrong herself, Severus doubted that mattered much on the Hogwarts grounds. With her being the Slytherin Seeker, the girl was in for a few interesting years that were bound to leave deep yet unseen wounds.

The Quaffle was released interrupting Creevey’s tirade extolling the virtues of the Ravenclaw team. Severus looked around again, trying to ignore some of the haughtier looks he received. With the exception of the Slytherins, the entire Pitch was wearing Ravenclaw rosettes, even some of the teachers. Flitwick, the only one of them who would have been justified in doing so, wasn’t wearing one and looked worried, his gaze shifting nervously around the stadium which was practically boiling with Slytherin hatred. The boos and the insults flew the instant Madam Hooch blew her whistle.

Severus turned back to his wife. She was scrutinizing the field, her profile marred by the same concern he had perceived in Flitwick, a deep frown nearly uniting her brows. Why had she wanted him here? Then he remembered. She had called the captain of the Slytherin team Penny… and Astoria had waved in his direction with great enthusiasm when he had glanced at the green and silver decked side. Astoria knew better than to make the mistake of assuming such familiarity with him. She had clearly waved at Hermione. Apparently, the regard was mutual.

A fresh wave of boos and hisses made the Pitch practically vibrate and tremble.

“Slytherin scores,” Creevey noted his usually upbeat tone now gone maudlin.

Hermione pointed out a blond-haired slip of a girl in a green robe from whom Penny Parkinson was just expertly beating away a Bludger. “That’s Azalea,” she said. “She’s too young to have been at school when we were… naturally.”

Severus leaned closer under the pretence of hearing her better over the noise of the frothing stadium. He brushed a hand over the velvety surface of her robes covering her arm. “I hope she is an outstanding flyer considering how much gold those Firebolts took out of the Prince family vault,” he murmured silkily in her ear, taking care that he was close enough for his breath to caress the cartilage.

It was petty, flaunting something he distinctively felt was nobody’s business like this, and it didn’t bother him. The problem was it was also dangerous. The last time the girl he loved had to choose between her friends and her House, he had lost. If Hermione had to choose between being a social leper and him, he didn’t like his odds.

“Penny thinks Azalea’s a great flyer,” continued Hermione. “The best Slytherin’s had in years.”

As if to confirm that, the Rookwood girl zipped across the field, soaring high and easily bypassing her Ravenclaw counterpart. Though she still came up empty-handed at the end for the Snitch got away. Creevey didn’t pay much attention to this development as a moment later Ravenclaw scored for the first time. The entire Pitch thrummed with screams of elation and many jumped to their feet to applaud. A rotund shadow fell over him and Severus craned his neck just in time to see Horace clap while standing too. Nobody wanted to be an outcast. Severus slinked away from Hermione and sat stiffly back in his seat. Longbottom looked smug but Severus had lost his appetite for both games, acid turning his stomach.

“Slytherin is in possession…. Oh, is that a foul? Madam Hooch doesn’t seem to think so. Anyway... Fawley passes to Talkalot… and Talkalot scores. It’s twenty to ten for Slytherin.”

Nearby someone actually moaned. Then the most extraordinary thing happened. Hermione got up to her feet and started to applaud. The only one among the teachers. She just stood there, wrapped in the pale rays of the February sun that rendered the green of her robes even brighter, and clapped. He was so shocked he couldn’t react for a moment but then he stood as well and applauded. When they sat back down, the silence surrounding them was palpable despite the racket of the agitated stadium. Longbottom was glaring at Severus as though he had murdered all the toads everyone in his family had ever owned. He was probably thinking Severus had somehow brainwashed Hermione into supporting the Slytherin Quidditch team.

“... Capulet passes to Fawley... and Fawley’s heading for the goal... only there’s a Bludger coming towards him and it looks like a nasty one.... Penny Parkinson, the Slytherin captain, swerves and hits it all the way to the Ravenclaw keeper and this one’s definitely on purpose. A dirty move worthy of a Death Eater. I’m sure her best friend is proud.”

With the quick reflexes born out of his time as a spy, Severus extended his arm and caught Hermione’s wand hand in his. He leaned closer again to hiss in his wife’s ear: “Do not hex an adolescent in public!”

There was a sound that was suspiciously like the gnashing of teeth from her. “I wasn’t going to hex Dennis,” she muttered venomously. “I was going to kill him!”

“Nevertheless,” he continued. “Wait until there are no witnesses.”

Hermione mashed her fingers with his as Madam Hooch ordered a penalty for Ravenclaw. One of their Chasers scored. Severus watched it unfold as though from a great distance, his whole attention laser-focused to his and Hermione’s joined hands. He surmised that everyone around was staring at them again, and he couldn’t blame them, as much as he would have liked to. This was new and uncharted territory for him as well. He had never held hands with a woman. He had never imaged anyone would ever even consider it. Yet Hermione, the vaunted Gryffindor Princess, held his hand like it was nothing like it was normal and not a crime against nature to touch Severus Snape in such an intimate fashion in front of other people. Her thumb had even stroked at the edge of his palm when Ravenclaw scored as if to comfort him during that difficult moment for the Slytherin team.

Struck by sudden inspiration, he turned to her again. “Is this a... date?” he asked.

Hermione’s head rolled to him with such speed it might as well have been propelled by magic. “No.... I thought.... Do you want it to be?”

A thundering wave of boos drowned them forcing their attention back to the field. Slytherin had scored again or something. As a child, Severus had dreamed of playing Quidditch for his House team but he had never made it. As a student, his command of a broom had been too shaky for him to be a Seeker or a Chaser and he had been too scrawny to be a Beater. He supposed that was why he had been so invested in learning to fly without a broomstick. It was his own personal protracted form of vengeance. When he had become Head of Slytherin, he had compensated for the loss of that dream by living vicariously through his students’ victories. The team lead by Penny Parkinson seemed to have successfully shed Marcus Flint’s legacy on relying on brute force and moved towards a more calculated and tactical approach that paid off greatly against Ravenclaw. Slytherin was going to win this match, he could tell. Yet all he could focus on was his hand in Hermione’s.

Severus Snape, the perpetual reject of the Slytherin Quidditch team, was at a match clearly dominated by his House, holding hands with a popular Muggle-born Gryffindor girl. If his fifteen-year-old self could see him now! Also, he appeared to have a type. Who knew?

“I thought you asked me here today because you believed that had you wanted us to go on a more obvious date, I’d have refused,” he whispered to Hermione during a bit of a lull in the game.

Her eyes were huge when she turned her head to gape at him. “Actually I asked you here today because I believed that had I asked you to come back to Hogwarts, because your Slytherins need you more than ever, you would’ve refused.”

He was staring, quite foolishly so too, but he seemed unable to stop himself. As usually his Occlumency walls failed to obey him around Hermione. She had gone to such lengths, had gone against her very Gryffindor nature to attempt and manipulate him for an entirely selfless goal. A goal that benefitted her House’s archenemy.

“What would Gryffindor House think if they knew you are plotting to bring back their most hated teacher?” he asked, too dismayed to control his tongue properly.

“I think Gryffindor can survive having one professor not sorely biased in their favour in a school where both the Headmistress and the Deputy come from their ranks,” she replied tartly.

Severus lifted her hand and brushed his lips on her knuckles. She wasn’t ashamed of him and he wasn’t ashamed of them. Someone cleared their throat pointedly behind them. Severus felt his lips twist wryly, while Hermione rolled her eyes. One of the corner of one eye, he saw Hagrid awkwardly try to hide a grin of his own in his heard.

The stadium erupted with heckles and hollers once more, redirecting both Severus and Hermione’s attention to the field. Azalea Rookwood floated to one side holding a small golden spark in one hand. The whistled blew. The game was over. Slytherin had won!

Severus and Hermione hadn’t had the time to turn and look at each other. Severus felt it before he saw it. A frigid breezed wrapped around him chasing away every ounce of the warmth that had been blooming in his chest since Hermione had grasped his hand. His lungs constricted with the icy pinpricks that filled his air passages in an instant. He lifted every Occlumency protection he possessed instinctively but he still felt it if only for a second: endless desolation and the touch of nearly mindless malice.

Then a large, dark shadow fell over the Quidditch Pitch blotting out the sun.

TBC


	38. Chapter 38

Wand in hand, Hermione leaped from her seat, her fingers tightening their clutch on Severus’ hand. She turned her head towards where the Headmistress who was sitting one row higher than her and her husband.

“Get the children out of here… quickly!” she rushed out in a single urgent breath.

She felt Severus released her hand and something else… a predatory touch pressing into her mind like the paw of a major carnivore reaching for a hapless rabbit. She slammed up all the Occlumency walls she had built under Severus’ tutelage but she did so one split second too late. The frigid malevolency of the Umbra had already slipped in, and Hermione wasn’t enough of an experienced Occlumens to force it out.

A horrible, high-pitched shriek swept over the stadium in a wave that echoed with the terrified screams of children and adults alike. Hermione knew too well the impact the voice of Umbra could have. It was like pure, distilled, auditory malevolence. Cold seeped into her lungs too, coiling into every cell of her being. It took her a moment to realise that this was so much worse than she had initially believed: Umbra wasn’t alone. It had sought, found, and brought reinforcements. The chilling effect of the sound and the mind invasion was now being enhanced by a ripple of thick hopelessness nestling within the depth of Hermione’s very soul.

Dementors were nearby.

Her vision wavering, the screech of the Umbra turned to the manic laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange, a sound that was to Hermione’s ears even more horrifying than the manifest wickedness of an otherworldly creature. Her arm began to spasm with pain and she could feel the blade of Bellatrix’s knife slashing into the skin, burning the odious word onto her flesh. She screamed and felt herself falling dimly aware that she was sinking to the upturned seats in the middle of the pandemonium that had seized the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch.

A single thought rolled desperately his her mind even as Bellatrix’s twisted face floated before her eyes alight with viciousness and glee. Her wand hand shot up, and she could feel the tremor in her fingers as they desperately clung to the wooden handle.

“Expecto patronum,” she cried out, the words vibrating helplessly into the air.

Somebody else, not far from her, shouted too, in a deep, rumbling voice that was comfortingly familiar. “Metuo!”

She felt long, wiry arms holding her, even though she understood the touch only belonged to memory. It was enough. Safety and warmth flitted through her parting the murky waters of desperation and horror. Bellatrix’s face wavered and as it disintegrated, she saw a small, yellowing sprout in the middle of a garden of surreally beautiful lilies take its place. A delicate doe of misty silver burst from the tip of her wand like an omen of salvation and charged into the knot of dementors swirling above.

All of a sudden Hermione could breathe freely again. She pushed herself back upwards, though her knees still shook and the back of her head was wet with cold sweat. With a somewhat surer hand, she directed the doe to carve a clear path through the dementors above. Her doe was almost immediately joined by a host of other patronuses that set onto picking their way through the attackers pushing them off the stadium and towards the Forbidden Forest.

“Are you all right?... Professor... Hermione....”

Someone was pulling rather insistently on the sleeve of her cloak. Hermione turned her gaze to the side, her own breathing suddenly too loud and raspy in her ears. The pitch had gone quiet, devoid of Umbra’s nightmarish voice, despite the continuing chaos of fleeing children and the Sonorus-enhanced voices of the teachers attempting to organize their retreat.

Both Astoria Greengrass and her friend, Penny, the younger sister of Pansy Parkinson, were looking apprehensively at Hermione. Penny seemed mostly unfazed but Astoria looked the most dishevelled Hermione had ever seen her. Her usually artfully combed hair was flying wildly about her face, her eyes were wide and full of fear, and her lips had turned almost entirely white. Her gaze swept over Hermione from head-to-toe.

“We saw you fall,” rasped Astoria. “We thought you had been hurt.”

Hermione noted that Penny was leaning on her Firebolt that she held upright at her side, her chalky knuckles the only evidence of nerves. When the attack began, the match had just ended. All the players would have still been on their brooms when Umbra appeared. It occurred to her Penny might have been flown towards her sick best friend in the Slytherin stands and then instead of running to safety, they had rushed into the thick of things to help. Hermione had no time to be touched by the gesture.

“Where is your brother, Miss Parkinson?” asked Hermione sternly.

“Azalea carried him and two first years back to the castle,” replied Penny, her voice even and her demeanour suspicious.

Hermione reminded herself that she also lacked the time to ponder Slytherin values of loyalty and fraternity. Both were showcased in what the petite Slytherin seeker had done. Instead she merely nodded. “You have to get to safety, too,” she commanded in a tone that would have made Ron and Harry pause. It wouldn’t have stopped them but it would have made them pause nonetheless.

The two Slytherin girls exchanged a look. “We’re seventeen... old enough to fight,” said Astoria not unkindly.

Great! Now that tone didn’t even make Slytherins run to save their skins.

Before she could argue, another broomstick zoomed by them then came to a sudden halt. Draco Malfoy lowered himself off it, looking as he always did, haughty, blonde, sharp-faced and grey-eyed. He nodded tersely in Hermione’s direction then went even paler than usual as he seemed to do a double-take. Apparently, he had noticed the colour of her robes, the symbolism not lost on him given the Quidditch match Hogwarts had just had. He recovered fast enough, though, and flashed her the world’s smuggest smirk that Hermione itched to punch off his face.

“It’s like I never left,” she muttered under her breath.

The few instants of distraction cost them, however. A dementor swooped towards them, clawed, scaly hands outstretched. But Astoria was faster. She whipped out her hand, her arm describing the graceful movement necessary of the patronus charm which she invoked in a low, breathy voice.

Her clear garden snake that was almost ivory in colour sprang from her wand tip and coiled around the dementor squeezing it until it backed away.

Though Astoria was actually taller than Hermione, she had never looked smaller to her than she did now, windswept and with her pallor taking on a nearly waxy quality, while fine, bloody veins marred the whites of her eyes. Draco was staring at the girl, too, his expression odd. If she hadn’t known Draco better, Hermione might have been inclined to think he looked shocked. Why would what Astoria had done bewilder him? Then it hit Hermione. Realisation dawned all of the sudden and it was swiftly followed by the urge to kill. She didn’t get to act on it, though, for the shriek of Umbra made the air around them rumble once more. Hermione was ready for it this time, though. Every wall in her head was in its place.

“Take them to the castle NOW,” she yelled at Malfoy, raising her wand defiantly as she did. Murdering him would have to wait.

He had the gall to glare at her. “They’re not safer inside the school,” he snapped. “If this thing can get through the wards guarding the ground, it can get through those around the castle too.”

The ferret had a point, as much as Hermione hated to admit it. “The Room of Requirement.... Hogwarts was rebuilt exactly as it was except for the Astronomy Tower. The Room still stands and you know how to get into it, Malfoy. Take everyone in there. It’s no guarantee it can provide protection against something out of this world but it’s better than nothing.”

Astoria shook her head. “Nobody outside our House is going to listen to Draco. He used to be Death Eater. They’d think he’s leading them into a trap.”

Hermione looked around. Most of the professors had stayed behind to fight as did many of the older students. The other teachers had to have coordinated the evacuation together with the prefects but Hermione couldn’t be certain they would trust Draco not to mean them any harm, either. Left with no other recourse, she dug into one of her pockets for her Dumbledore Army coin. They had to dispatch a few dementors as Umbra practically enveloped the stadium with its darkness.

Neville came rushing towards them. As Hermione had hoped, he also kept the fake Galleon on his person at all times. For many of them, it was a memento of everything they had been through since Voldemort’s return. A pang wedged itself in Hermione’s rapidly beating heart. She missed the solidarity and kinship she and Neville and the rest of their friends used to feel back when they had been in Dumbledore’s Army together. Black had been so black back then and white so white. Now it was all mixed-up and grey. Despite their recent fight, however, Neville had still answered her summons. The bond they had forged in fire seemed to endure.

She grasped onto the sleeve of his Gryffindor red robes and pulled him aside from the wary-looking Slytherins. “You and Draco can find the Room of Requirement. Try to get as many students in there as you can. Hopefully, it can provide some protection!”

Neville frowned. “Why does Malfoy have to come?” he asked casting Draco an ugly look the Malfoy heir returned complete with one of his trademark irritating smirks.

Trust Draco Malfoy to make this harder for her!

“Because the Slytherins and we are in the same boat this time,” replied Hermione in her best voice of reason tone, which hadn’t worked when she had been using it to defend Severus back in school and judging by the expression on Neville’s face, it wasn’t going to start now.

“How do we know they didn’t cause this, to begin with? I rushed to help you when the dementors attacked and saw Snape roll up his sleeve and touch his wand to the Dark Mark. You can ask Professors Sprout and Sinistra. They saw him too!”

So that was how Draco had got here. Severus had recast the Protean Charm on the Mark in order to warn him. Then Draco had to have Apparated with his broom outside the grounds and then simply flown over. Also, this whole issue could morph into a serious problem for Severus, given that the Ministry already suspected him to be scheming to become the next Dark Lord, but she couldn’t think about this now. Her priority had to remain to protect the student body against the dark forces attacking Hogwarts. Again!

Hermione’s grip on the fabric of Neville’s robes tightened and she inched her head towards his to hiss venomously somewhere close to his right ear: “Let me make this simple for you then, Neville. You can either do as I say or you’d best hope I’m about to be killed because otherwise, I’ll send a copy of the Ministry file on Nagini to Rita Skeeter. How would your Gran like to read that her heroic grand-son decapitated the victim of a blood curse?”

Neville wrenched himself back, his face white as the February snow still covering the Hogwarts grounds. “You wouldn’t!”

“Why don’t you ask Marietta Edgecombe what I would or wouldn’t do?”

Nevilled looked betrayed and the thorn in Hermione’s heart felt sharper but she held her ground, standing unmoved in the middle of the mayhem glaring at her old friend and housemate in warning. Neville shot a leering Draco Malfoy another dirty look. It didn’t escape Hermione’s notice that Penny had less than discreetly placed herself between Malfoy and Astoria. Hermione was really going to kill Malfoy once she was done with Umbra.

Neville went to do what Hermione had requested without further protest, freeing her to delve towards Severus and a group of teachers forming a united front against Umbra down on the Quidditch field that was still covered in a thin layer of sparkling, white snow.

# # #

It happened in the blink of an eye as some life-altering events were sometimes liable to occur. Severus knew that Umbra was barraging towards him. He could feel the intent as the being rapped against the carefully erected Occlumency construction in his mind. He focused as the walls creaked and protested the assault but held on. They had too practice much resisting the Dark Lord for long, gruelling years. Umbra would have to try harder if it wanted to break him. He lifted his wand.

The fear-inducing curse he and Hermione had been working on had done what it had been meant to but only after a fashion. It had had an impact on Umbra but it was only temporary. It had been driven off only to return enraged. That left the Adversus charm that had the perilous side-effect of depleting the caster of all magic for a few hours and was yet untested against Umbra. But he had no other recourse.

And then it happened....

At first, he had interpreted it as part of Umbra’s attack. Something slammed hard into his side jabbing into his ribs. Breath stuttered uneasily out of his lungs that were still struggling with the arctic cold-induced by the nearness of the dementors. He blinked as the change in circumstances sunk in. Someone had pushed him off the direct path of Umbra. Someone dressed in heavy green robes and sporting wild, chestnut-coloured hair. Hermione! She darted in front of him, standing between him and potentially certain death.

The world tipped then tumbled off its axis. For as long as Severus could remember, he had been the one standing between others and danger. The one tasked with protecting everyone else at the expense of his own life and safety. The one who tried to save others and suffered the remorseless whipping of his conscience when he failed. Such was the natural order of things. He was the expendable one, the odd, misshapen, much-loathed Slytherin nobody trusted or wanted around. So it stood to reason he got to be sacrificed. He had wanted to be sacrificed. He had once gone to his death unresisting. What Hermione was doing now was unthinkable, unprecedented... obscene almost. This was not how things went!

He lurched for her. He needed to pull her back and restore balance to the universe. But he was too late. Her wand whirled into the air and he recognized the movement with a sinking feeling, as impotent horror unfurled within him.

“Expecto adversum,” she shouted, her voice vibrating steadily as it formed the two damning words.

Wisps of tarry smoke emerged from the tip of her wand, contrasting powerfully with the white of snow. They unfolded and grew until they became a cloud of blackness. The cloud shifted and bloomed in turn until it converted into a silhouette. Severus had expected Hermione’s adversus to take the shape of Bellatrix Lestrage but his wife surprised him once more. The figure was that of Hermione herself holding up her wand. The adversus’ lips moved soundlessly and Severus thought they curled around the word _Obliviate_. One’s worst enemy indeed!

On the few occasions he had risked her experimenting with the dangerous new charm he had created, her adversus had never been corporeal, reduced to an amorphous blur of a vapour resembling coal dust. However, Hermione was a powerful witch with a lot of potential and wand movement capabilities well beyond her young years. It stood to reason that with enough focus she could push the charm into generating a full-bodied shape.

The dark Hermione of the adversus sprang upwards towards Umbra trailing a coil of shadowy mist behind it. The apparition tackled Umbra as though in an embrace, the dark twin of Hermione’s wand sinking into it. That moment its screeching voice plummeted into a low wail so terrible and plaintive it left little doubt as to the creature’s unearthly origin. The adversus did harm it!

Umbra contracted and drew back towards skies that were already beginning to lose their forcedly foggy quality. The adversus surged after it but it was already loosening potency as it drained the magical core of its caster. The black Hermione-shaped outline started to unravel, spirals of smog drifting away from it. Then it dissolved into nothingness against the background of a sky that had just returned to bright blue. It didn’t matter, though. Umbra was gone as well. It had been successfully repelled like a dementor would be by a patronus.

Hermione tumbled to the ground in a whirl of green robes and brown hair splayed against the white blanket of snow enveloping the Quidditch field. Her wand slid from her nerveless fingers. McGonagall dove after her but Severus was faster. He lifted her in his arms, softly calling her name. She didn’t respond. She was unconscious, a trickle of crimson slipping from the left corner of her mouth. As he cradled her against his chest, he couldn’t help but think of Snow-White, nonsensical as the notion was.

His fingers trembled as he felt for a pulse. Someone was speaking and the voice resounded somewhere near but he didn’t care to make out the words. There was nothing but ice in his veins. The adversus was a new charm which he had insufficiently tested. Even he wasn’t entirely sure how much the temporary magical depletion it caused could affect the human body. _His_ charm! Of _his_ own creation! Hermione had cast _his_ charm in _his_ defence! If she was dead, then he had killed her just as he had done with Lily.

But Hermione’s heart was still beating, its rhythm translating to a slow but steady pulse that beat against the clammy pads of Severus’ fingers. She lived! Something hot and wet blurred his vision. He blinked. Squeezing Hermione tighter against his chest, he ignored the commotion blossoming around him and took flight towards the castle. She lived and she needed help! Nothing in the world mattered beyond that!

Reflecting back on that day, later on, he would come to the conclusion that they had all been incredibly fortunate that the adversus did prove highly effective against Umbra. Because he could have done nothing to contribute to the fight if the battle had prolonged past Hermione’s charm casting. Umbra had failed to shatter his Occlumency walls. The Dark Lord had never managed to see past them and into the secret he had been concealing. But Hermione Granger had obliterated each and every Occlumency defence he had ever created simply by pushing him out of harm’s way in order to take his place.

Years of practice and effort had been gone in the blink of an eye. Ironclad control had deserted and his vaunted willpower had been powerless to stop the deluge. The thought was still distant, dim, not yet fully-formed, as he flew to the hospital wing, his precious burden clutched against his torso. He didn’t understand. Not yet. But the notion was there, in the back of his mind, albeit nothing more than a seedling. Everything had changed and there was no going back.

TBC

**Author's Note:**

> You're not gonna believe this but the amazingly talented imaggienacion actually created a most lovely fanart for the wedding scene in this fic. You can view it and show your appreciation here: https://imaggienacion.tumblr.com/post/617430824466415616/i-felt-so-inspired-by-the-fanfic-the-shadow-and
> 
> Thank you for reading. Please, leave a comment with your thoughts. Good or bad, I want to hear it.


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